


Game Theory

by LithiumDoll



Category: Highlander: The Series, Numb3rs
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-01
Updated: 2008-06-01
Packaged: 2017-10-29 16:23:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LithiumDoll/pseuds/LithiumDoll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Don, Charlie, Megan, David and Colby investigate a series of unusual murders in Seacouver. Because, seriously, what kind of serial killer has a sword and a Tesla coil the size of a house?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dm24](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=dm24).



The latest victim was in her fifties, remained unidentified and had brought them no closer to finding a link than the victim before her had. But here he was, in his father's – Charlie's – house, closing in on nothing but midnight and trying to connect the dots anyway.

Didn't he used to have better things to do on a Saturday night?

Alan sat quietly in the easy chair in the corner, reading the newspaper he'd rescued from under a pile of books on the coffee table. He glanced up from behind it with a questioning expression. "Okay, Donnie?"

"Yeah. There's just a hell of a lot of … ", he gestured at the files and folders piled around him. "Nothing. There's a hell of a lot of nothing."

He let the report fall onto the table and slumped back in the chair, stretching the tightness in his back away.

A hand, followed by an arm, reached past his shoulder and put a bottle of beer on the table at his elbow, then picked the file up on its way back. "'The Lightning Killer', that's lurid. And this data is anomalous."

"Thanks." The beer was cold and washed a little of the fog gathering in his mind away. "Anomalous how?"

"Last year there were over two hundred fatalities from lightning strikes, but that was over the entire country. You've got sixteen in one city - city, not rural, for a start. And over half of them are women? Statistically, men are four times more likely to be struck by lightning."

"Seems kinda …" Don turned his head to look up at his brother. "How do you even know that?"

Charlie grinned down at him. "Actually, it's interesting. I went to a talk on the application of neural networks in-"

"Never mind." Don took the file back and flipped it closed as he dropped it back down amongst the others. "Anyway, why are you still here? I thought you and Amita were, you know. The weekend?"

"She got caught up in her work. I was in the garage."

"And you ... don't mind? You've been talking about it all week."

Charlie shrugged and drew a chair out from under the table. "Hey, it's a real breakthrough for her, I'd do the same thing. There're other weekends but there's only one traveling salesman. It's exciting."

Don studied him blankly for a moment. "Right. Sounds it."

"So, lightning strikes?"

He half-smiled and shook his head. "Well, probably not. I mean, we didn't go to a talk, but we caught on that it wasn't natural, or random, pretty fast. The victims weren't killed by lightning."

"It does only kill about twenty percent of the people it strikes."

"Decapitation's odds are a little higher." A condensation trail ran from the bottle and began to pool on the tabletop; he pushed the papers most in danger away and heard a couple of soft thuds as he lost files over the side.

Charlie took the opportunity to lean forward and claim the report again, and Don let him. Maybe he'd see something they'd missed. Hell, at this point Don was ready to bring in the psychics; he wondered whether he should have involved Charlie already. Probably, but it got a little easier every time he did and that made him uncomfortable. Until he figured out why, his brother would stay the last resort.

Charlie's eyes flickered left and right as he skimmed over the document, Don could tell he'd reached the coroner's notes when they widened. "They all had their head cut off?"

"Uh huh. Then, they were fried. Overkill, huh?"

"Except they weren't. A dead body would still be damaged by electricity; it can't have been lightning. Not a direct strike, anyway. Where is this?"

"Seacouver. It's their local media calling them 'The Lightning Killings'. Pretty weak."

"Huh. Larry lectured there for about half a year, came back to CalSci. He never said why. Well, he said something about swallows, but …"

"Did you ask him?"

Charlie scowled. "Of course I asked him."

Don raised his hands and then dropped them down on the table. "Hey, sometimes you get a little-"

"I asked him." Charlie decided not to mention it had been Amita who'd asked. He'd just been glad Larry was back. "Seacouver's up near Washington, right? Why did you, you know … catch it?"

Don hid his smile at Charlie's hesitation at 'catch', he tried to speak the jargon he heard the others use, but he still hadn't gotten it down yet. "Because it's got the same markings as a case from a few years ago and a guy from our department was SAC. He was already there, so. I don't know. I guess they figured that made it ours again.

"David and Colby flew in yesterday, me and Megan are driving up tomorrow."

"You taking anyone else?"

"You saying you want to come along?" Don didn't hide his grin this time and Charlie ducked his head.

"Hey, you know, you don't want-"

"Be outside the door at six. And I mean six, okay? In the morning. Six."

"I know what six is, Don."

From behind his newspaper, Alan spoke levelly. "You know what it is, you've just never been there."

Don nodded. "Thank you."

Charlie laughed. "I've seen more early mornings than either of you."

Don shook his head and began trying to pull the paperwork into a manageable pile. "From the wrong side; it doesn't count when you've been up all night."

"Does." Arms crossed and the head drew towards the shoulders. Don would have sworn on a stack of bibles that Charlie was pouting like he was six and it was the last cookie incident all over again.

" _Doesn't_." He reasoned that he kind of couldn't help it; the petulant tone hit on every brotherly instinct in him. He hadn't been able to help it with the cookies either.

Alan coughed before they could reach the embarrassing 'times infinity' levels of bickering. "Seacouver, huh?"

"What, you want to come now too?"

The newspaper rustled as it was lowered and folded; Alan shook his head with more vehemence than Don was used to. "No, I do not."

"Sounds like the voice of experience."

"Eh, conference back twenty, twenty five years. Didn't think much of the place. It's where I got that seashell for your mother." Don followed his father's gaze to the pearl-sheened shell on the mantle.

"Well, maybe it's changed."

"Maybe it hasn't. You'd be surprised how much some things don't change."

Alan took a breath and hauled himself out of the chair with a light groan. "And if you two are going to be clattering around the house so early, I'm going to bed. Stay safe, Donnie."

That was an old code, from long before the FBI. It meant, 'stay safe and watch Charlie like a hawk.'

"Always do. Night."

Don turned back to his brother as Alan made his way up the creaking stairs.

"Six."

Charlie sighed and stood to help gather the papers that had fallen to the floor. "Six. It's a perfect number, a harmonic divisor and, and the fourth all-Harshad, I get it already."

"Perfect? It's got a nice shape, I guess. Curly. I like it."

"Never mind. Six. In the morning." Charlie handed him the files and waved him impatiently towards the door. Don grinned and left.

Charlie was standing outside the door at six but Don wasn't fooled. He was right to be suspicious; once the car had drawn up to the curb, Charlie took all of two steps towards it and then turned a one eighty.

"There's a book I should-"

Don nodded. "You have five minutes and we're leaving."

Megan watched Charlie sprint inside the house. "We're going to hit traffic anyway, there's no rush."

"No, but if I give him five he'll take fifteen. Tell him there's no rush and we'll still be sitting here tomorrow. When we were kids, going on trips, Dad didn't even bother trying. Just threw him in the back seat, blankets and everything." Don smirked and Megan shook her head, amused.

"Let's call that 'Plan A', or we'll run out of sandwiches."

"You made sandwiches?" That seemed weirdly domesticated for Megan.

She shook her head again and pulled the top of a deli take out bag from her sports bag. "I bought sandwiches."

"Everything's right with my world."

"I can cook when I want to."

"Yeah," he turned his head to look at her. "I don't think sandwiches count as cooking."

"You haven't seen my sandwiches." She sniffed and straightened in her seat, the model of offended womanhood. He might have apologised if she hadn't had the laughter lighting her eyes.

"If they burn, you're doing it wrong – hey!" He hunched away from her light smack on his shoulder. "No hitting the driver."

Megan subsided and the light faded but stayed warm. "You're in a good mood."

"Yeah," he nodded and righted himself again. "I guess I am."

They watched as Charlie struggled out of the door with another bag to match the two already lying on the curb.

Don tapped the wheel lightly as all the bags were slung in the trunk and waited until Charlie was half sprawled in the back seat of the Sedan to speak. "Six."

"Six minutes past six. I would have made six seconds but Dad cornered me about the light in the basement."

Oh. Yeah. Don turned enough to look at his brother and delivered the forgotten message deadpan. "You need to fix it."

"Yeah, I got that. Thanks. Hey Megan."

"Charlie." Megan smiled and shifted to avoid being kicked in the back while he settled himself comfortably. As the car pulled into the road he leant forward, bracing his arms on the backs of their seats.

"So, tell me who would cut their victim's head off and then create power surges massive enough to mark the crime scene."

"Well, that's the question of the day." Despite herself, she fell into the reporting cadence, even if Don had heard all this before and Charlie wouldn't care. "It's someone who likes attention, obviously. Or _someones_. This could be a copycat; there was a very similar case in the nineties. There's some pretty compelling evidence that it's the same person, though."

"Yeah, Don said something about that. What happened last time?" Charlie's hair brushed her face, she fought the urge to tell him to sit back and put his seatbelt on. He had to know better anyone else the forces involved in collision and given how safety-conscience he usually was, she could only assume he thought the odds of that happening were small.

She wondered if Don knew how much faith Charlie had in him.

"Last time. Well, we'd like to know that too." Megan smiled thinly. "The SAC closed the case and it stayed closed for twelve years, buried. Four deaths under the same MO. There've been sixteen since - sixteen we know about, anyway. One or two a year and then seven in the last two weeks. I have no idea what the Seacouver PD was thinking, trying to keep it under wraps."

Charlie nodded, understanding Megan's sudden lack of humour. "But you think he hid it. Originally."

Don coughed a laugh that barely managed to be half amused. "It's that or he was really incompetent. I don't know which one's better."

"Is the agent-in-charge still around?"

"McCormick dropped off the grid in ninety-seven. There was an investigation but the working theory is he was taken out by the mob. The guy's record was impeccable, though. He doesn't read like someone who'd bury a file deliberately or by mistake."

"But McCormick disappears a year after this case is buried and that's not … weird?"

Megan nodded. "Let's just say we're not ruling out a link on that one."

Charlie drew back and she heard the sounds she associated with someone trying to get comfortable in a space too small to do it. She felt a faint pang of guilt but nowhere near enough to give up the front seat. He finally leaned forward again. "You realise we're not going to get there until midnight, why are we driving?"

Don answered soberly. "Budget cuts."

"You're not serious."

"Sure. They have us make our own badges too, now."

"Funny. Tell me or I'm going to be asking if we're nearly there yet every third of a mile. That averages every eighteen point three nine seconds, Don. Not counting how long it takes to actually say, 'Are we there yet?' Over the next seventeen and a half hours, I'll spend approximately seven point eight three percent of the time asking if we're there, _Don_."

Megan turned her head enough to look back at him and didn't try to hide her horrified admiration. "You guys must have been a lot of fun to take on trips."

Don smirked as she straightened again. "Ask me about cow bingo some time."

"Yeah, I don't think I will. McCormick's ex-partner retired to Sacramento, Charlie. We're going to call on her and drive the rest of the way on Monday."

"I thought you had people for that kind of thing. An entire bureau of investigation, you know?"

She shrugged. "I want to talk to her myself. Besides, what's wrong with a road trip?"

Charlie smiled. "I didn't go on those even when I was a student."

"Then you're due." She dug in her bag for a moment and then held up a slightly greasy wrapped parcel. "Want a sandwich?"

MacLeod dropped his sword as the Quickening arced into him, battering down until he was on his knees. He struggled to stand again, trying to make it to the body of the woman, desperately trying to find her sword. Over the roar of life thrumming through him and the sound of shattering windows above, he could hear the sirens.

Finally the cold metal of the blade was under his scrabbling fingers, vibrating as the Quickening ran down it.

There was a shout from the mouth of the alley and he didn't even turn around.

He ran.

Don liked driving, even when the scenery was nothing special and the highway was taking him nowhere he really wanted to go.

He hadn't shared that with his therapist, he had a pretty good idea what the man would say. Or wouldn't say. He'd just stare until Don said it himself and, seriously, it was the oldest interrogation technique in the book and it shouldn't have worked.

Yeah, it always did.

He tuned out Megan and Charlie's talking and kept his pace to the beat up truck ahead, and he let his mind wander.

McCormick was involved somehow; Don would put money on it. But everything in the man's record said he was an incorruptible during a less than clean period in the Bureau's history; it didn't make sense. That was why Megan wanted to talk to the man's partner and he'd agreed. Paper could tell you whatever it wanted to, but it didn't know a damn thing.

The cell receiver on the dash chirped and he reached out to push the button. "Eppes."

"Don? David."

Sinclair's voice was tinny, Don wasn't sure if it was the hills around them bouncing the signal, he didn't think so.

"What's up?"

"There's just been another death, we're at the scene now. There's still -ic or something around, it's mess- with the cell and-"

"David? You're breaking-"

"- asing a sus – "

There was a hiss, a sharp dial tone and then the light on the cell dimmed. Okay. Call over.

"We can skip Sacramento." Megan's voice was carefully neutral, giving no indication of her own opinion, only offering the option.

Don thought about it and then shook his head. "No, they'll handle it."

"Electrical discharge just doesn't last that long without a power source. It shouldn't have lasted for more than a few seconds."

"You got any theories on that? We talking a … Tesla coil or something?"

Charlie stared at him via the rear view mirror. Don recognised the expression – it was the one Charlie generally wore when trying to figure out how to tell someone that they were an idiot, in the nicest way possible.

"To generate that level of activity, it would have to be pretty big. I know David and Colby haven't been there long, but they'd probably have noticed a building wrapped in copper wire. Sorry."

Don nodded. "Okay, there couldn't be a portable one? In a truck, maybe?."

"An old truck, maybe. Really, really old. _Crank powered_ , old. If it had an electric component, well. Let's just say you'd only use it once. And it would have to be diesel because petrol would ignite. Although if the ambient temperature was high enough, diesel would go up as well."

Megan chewed thoughtfully on the last of her sandwich. "How about where the power's coming from? They're not tapping into the grid - the company covering the area hasn't reported any spikes at all. Generator?"

"Not enough power for something that violent or prolonged. The generator would be twice the size of the Tesla coil."

"Okay, not a Tesla coil, I get it. What else is there?"

"There are ways to attract lightning; they're doing some pretty fascinating things with lasers in Geneva." Charlie looked at the twin expressions in the review mirror, patient but glazed. "Which isn't here. Anyway I don't think it is lightning, the collateral damage is mostly concussive and there's nothing in the autopsies to support it at all. It doesn't fit. Were there any theories in the case files from before?"

Don's mouth twisted sourly. "McCormick mentioned it in a footnote, I guess he didn't think it was significant."

Methos was beginning to develop a pure and true hatred for the Seacouver public transport system. It wasn't enough that it seemed to assume 'around then-ish' was a perfectly acceptable timetable, but the bus drivers uniformly ranked those without the correct fare with something that might be found under a rotting log.

Next time - and he was beginning to become resigned to the fact there would be a next time - _next time_ he was forced to accept a Challenge on the outskirts of the city, he was going to remember to search the body for its loose change.

Charlie managed to contain himself to asking if they were nearly there just twice. The first time Don groaned and the second time Megan shot him a pointed look from under precisely arched eyebrows.

Annoying his brother was one thing, annoying Megan was less attractive: she could probably break him with her pinkie finger and if Larry ever found out, Charlie could look forward to weeks of ingenious and potentially lethal devices left hidden in his paperwork.

So he waited until they passed the sign welcoming them to Sacramento and then leaned forward. "Are we there yet?"

Rosaria Monroe was half Scottish, half Mexican and Megan had no trouble at all believing it - the apartment, decorated in dusky Santa Fe reds and yellows and accented with pictures of the Scottish Highlands and tartan cushions, was kind of a tell.

The apartment itself was small and cluttered, dimmed by ornate netting drawn over the curtain-free windows. It would never quite be light or dark, but it was comfortable and smelled faintly of lilac and cigar smoke.

Pictures in a colourful and eclectic collection of frames were perched on all available surfaces and the walls were like the ones she'd seen in the bars cops claimed as their own: half celebration and half memorial.

Some of the pictures were older than others; sepias turning to grays that turned to colors. Children growing into adults, faces that disappeared as the years went on. A large family and a larger circle of friends, was her guess. The image in McCormick's file had been small and blurred, she couldn't be sure if he was in any of the photos here. She didn't think so.

It was tempting to look closer while Rosaria was making coffee in the tiny kitchen, but it would be prying, not investigating, and there she drew the line.

After a few more minutes she could hear the other woman making her way down the short hall and turned back towards the door.

From Monroe's record, Megan had been expecting someone more like the other women she'd met who'd made it in the Bureau through the seventies and eighties. Even the nineties. The ones who were hard as nails and wore it all on the outside.

Instead, she looked like Megan's third grade art teacher: shorter than average but solidly built, and with a natural curve to her lips that defaulted to a smile. Her top and skirt were loose and brightly tie-dyed, and large hoop earrings hung down to brush a chunky beaded necklace. There was a sharpness to her features that meant she'd probably never been conventionally good looking – not enough to use it, anyway – but age had given her a handsome cast and the silver in the dark hair was striking.

Henna patterns swirled around her hands and up her arms in shades of brown and red, and Megan could see glimpses of them as the sleeves rode up.

Rosaria made a space for the tray on the table, amongst the pictures, and then straightened. "Have a seat, Agent Reeves."

"Thank you, Ms Monroe." She sat, pulling a crochet covered cushion shaped like a cat out from behind her.

"Aria, please." She snorted. "You know, I bitched him out for calling me that for eight years and then I couldn't shake it."

Megan tried to overcome the mental dissonance of her third grade art teacher swearing in a smoke-roughened voice. "Him?"

"McCormick. That's who you're here to ask me about, right? I watch the news, I know what's going on up there."

"Yes. Was he difficult to work with?"

"He was a pain in the ass." Aria's expression was poker faced but Megan saw the suggestion of a smile – she'd been intended to see it.

"I see. So, bickering?"

Aria raised her shoulders with an almost philosophical expression. "Matt was a good cop, a good agent. A good partner. Couldn't tell a good baseball team from a bad one is all I'm saying. I guess no one's perfect."

"And you've had no contact with him?" She asked as gently as she could but wasn't surprised to see the humour fade away and leave traces of old grief behind. Twelve years wasn't long when you didn't know if you should be mourning, she knew.

She wondered if they had been involved. There was some kind of connection there and Rosaria would only have been eight or nine years older than McCormick; it was possible, but it didn't feel like the right answer.

"No contact, not since the Cavelli case. He got a call, gave me his fortune cookie and said he'd see me in the morning." Rosaria shook her head with a half-rueful amusement. "That was Matty, never did make the big exits."

"A year before he disappeared, he was agent in charge of the investigation in Seacouver." Megan sipped her coffee, it was sweet and strong and slightly spiced. "Your file has you under suspension during that period."

"Right, I wasn't with him on that one. Three weeks unpaid. By the time I was back, he'd wrapped the case. And now you're re-opening it." Megan nodded and Rosaria smiled. "And you're wonder why he closed it in the first place. Could be a copycat."

"It could be, but if it is the killer is using the original murder weapon. We can't discount any angle."

"Sure, I can see that. But I can't tell you any more than I have. I wasn't there."

Megan gently set her mug on the coffee table, aiming for a coaster rather than one of the many fallen frames. "Yeah, that's actually what I was going to ask you, Aria." She looked up with a smile and saw Monroe's expression shutter. "We have a record of your suspension, but there's also an expense report McCormick filed for a train ticket from New York to Seacouver. Little weird, because he was already up there and you'd think he'd fly … unless he didn't want a name on the ticket."

"Maybe he misfiled."

"Maybe he didn't cover his tracks. I'm betting no one was looking too close anyway. You were with him in Seacouver. I get it. If my partner was investigating something like that, I'd want in."

Rosaria shrugged carelessly "So what if I was there? I was suspended, not grounded."

"Talk me through it."

"You got the case file right there. Four bodies and they were all decapitated. The suspect took a dive off a building and the killings stopped. W-he waited a few more days trying other leads and nothing turned up, he got called back. Case closed."

"Except there was another victim seven months later. Another one sixteen months after that. And the case never got flagged, never got re-opened."

"By then, Matty was missing and I was ... I was on other cases. Not his fault it never got picked up."

"Well, if you remember anything else…" Megan trailed away under the calm regard and shook her head, dropping the rote words. "We're not trying to witch hunt here. There's a killer out there and they're accelerating, anything you know that could save lives…"

"I have nothing for you and I'm sorry about that." Aria's expression was genuine and Megan believed her, but there was still something the other woman wasn't telling her. Something. She could only hope it wouldn't bring them more bodies.

"What did the fortune cookie say?"

Aria smiled crookedly. "'Don't ask, don't say. Everything lies in silence.'"

Megan glanced once more around the room made of memories. "Or by it."

Don and Charlie were still in the diner, most of the lunch time crowd had been and gone and now it was just a few truckers and the fry cook's radio, set to football as far as she could tell through the static.

Don shifted along to make room for her in the booth. "Anything?"

"We were right, she was there. She tells it the same as the report, no more, no less."

Charlie took a final bite out of his sub and then pushed it to the side. "You think she was in on it?"

"She was in on something, but her record was as good as McCormick's."

"She was suspended three times. That's not what I'd call good." Don canted his head back and then raised his hand to catch the waitress' attention.

"But all the suspensions were for misconduct against colleagues. Reading between the lines, she was fighting her way up the ladder. Except for the last guy."

"What happened?"

"She shot an agent in the leg. Three months later, he's under investigation by IA for corruption. After that, she took early retirement."

"So scary, but not dirty."

"But she obviously knows more than she's telling."

"Hey, if we need to, we order a full enquiry."

"I'm hoping we won't have to. I left my cell number." She picked the menu up.

"David reported in. Our guy killed again."

And she put the menu down. "What have they got?"

"One man running from the scene. They're following him while the locals get an ID. The crime scene's coming back clean so far, we're not getting anything that way."

"You think it's him?"

Don toyed with his mug, sending it from hand to hand before finally letting it slide away, to tap gently against the sugar shaker. "I think we're not that lucky, but he might be a witness and that would be something."

Charlie looked between them. "Why not bring him in?"

"Because we've got nothing to hold him on and I want to know who he is before we start asking questions. If he is our guy, no way we want him walking."

With a fleeting regret for the waffles she'd never have, Megan smiled. "If we go now, we could make it through a lot of Oregon."

Don reached for the keys on the table.


	2. Chapter 2

Aria stared at the number scrawled across the slip of paper for a long few minutes before she stood and retrieved the phone handset from the wall, and then wandered into the kitchen.

She punched in the number from memory, some things even a decade couldn't wear the edges from. It rang twice before a familiar voice spoke gruffly.

"Joe's Bar."

"You sound terrible, Joe. You started drinking your breakfast?"

There was a pause and then, "Monroe?"

"You remember me, I'm touched."

"You left an impression, lady."

She gave a throaty chuckle and leaned her hip against the doorframe, watching the clock on the wall as the seconds ticked by. "A girl does her best. You got trouble coming to town. Just had an Agent Reeves here asking questions about the case McCormick buried."

"Ah, hell." His voice became more muffled as she heard him draw away and speak to someone she assumed was with him in the room. She couldn't make out the words, but she could take a wild stab in the dark who they were to.

The line crackled again and then he was back. "Mac says, 'hi'."

It was more likely he'd sworn, but she smiled and let it into her voice. "Tell Mac he hasn't exactly been keeping it quiet up there." Time healed all wounds, they said. She wasn't sure about that, but it had healed these ones enough to turn _instant_ dislike to nostalgic affection.

"Yeah, well, it's getting real crowded."

"You think it's the Gathering?" That stirred something almost like hope; if it was, McCormick – if he was still alive – would have to resurface. Maybe he'd…. he'd. No, he wouldn't.

"I don't know. Mac says it doesn't feel right and I'm with him on that, but it's causing a hell of a mess. I thought McCormick buried this."

"He did, twelve years ago. Looks like they dug it up again."

"Man, that long?" Joe sounded half way to horrified and that made her feel much better.

"That long. We got old on them, Joe."

There was a snort. "Speak for yourself."

She laughed. "Silver tongued devil."

"Thanks for the heads up, Aria."

Even now, the name still caused a twinge. "Yeah. Have you … have you heard anything?"

"Nothing, I'm sorry. I think he would have …"

She listened for hope in the silence and heard none; she gave herself a mental shake and strengthened her voice. "Okay, Joe. We'll be swapping war stories next and then the only cure's a bullet taken orally. Call me if there's any updates, old man."

Joe snorted again and hung up the phone. He let his hand rest on it for a moment then turned to face the two men at the bar. "We got a new problem."

MacLeod managed a smirk. "Just one? That doesn't sound like Agent Monroe."

"She's not Bureau anymore, Mac. They retired her ass years ago." He grimaced. "The Feds are coming to town."

Methos raised his attention from the papers stacked in front of him. "Oh, there's a phrase to warm any heart."

MacLeod frowned. "Do we know any of them? Any ex-Watchers? Immortals?"

"She wouldn't have bothered warning us if there wasn't a real danger so I'm guessing, no."

MacLeod shook his head and slid off his barstool. "I'm going to go clean up."

"I moved your gear into the small store room," Joe called after him.

The bar had become their temporary HQ and things were getting bad enough that Joe was giving some serious thought to having it consecrated as Holy Ground. God Almighty had to know it was meeting minimum requirements: it was a place of sanctuary and a mental 'Christ, I hope they make it back okay' was a more sincere prayer than he'd managed since he was a kid.

MacLeod had begun keeping a bag there since his apartment had been broken into two Challenges back; the risk of a Quickening in such a public place had to be minimized and it was that or camping out in the park.

So he'd been there when Joe had come down in the morning and he'd tersely given the name of the Immortal he'd taken the head of. Habit, more than anything. It wasn't like the Watchers really meant anything anymore. But maybe a few hundred years down the line they would and if Joe had any say at all, the records would be safe and waiting.

In contrast to MacLeod, Methos looked fresh as a daisy and had sauntered in at noon, but Joe didn't know how much of that was for effect. He wasn't being Challenged much less than MacLeod, even though none of his opponents seemed to realise whose sword they were lining up to be slaughtered by.

And now the man was calmly grading papers, red pen moving in an energetic dance. "Honestly, I know the Argead dynasty had its little complexities but who could possibly mistake Argaeus for Antigonus? He had one eye for God's sake."

Joe smiled and slid another beer over. "Yeah, you know your students probably aren't going with visual memory?"

Methos waved the comment away and finally let the pen rest. "So how long until we can expect our guests?"

"Tomorrow, earliest. You know there's no way Powell's going to be able to stop them taking over."

"Honestly, I'm surprised he managed to keep the Feds out so long. How far back do he and MacLeod go, anyway?"

"Long enough. You got anything for the book?" He pulled the battered blue notebook he was using for his records and raised his pencil at Methos' nod.

"Simon Haversham. Well, that's how he introduced himself. He could have been Owain Fitzgerald of the Court of King James for all I know, but somehow I doubt it."

"Not good enough?"

Methos raised an eyebrow. "I'd say he was exactly good enough, but then I'm quite attached to my head."

"You know what I mean."

"Yes, he was as inexperienced as the others, I wouldn't say he was older than thirty or forty."

Joe dutifully wrote the name down in the list of the dead and made a mental note to get the book into digital encryption as soon as possible. His version was ciphered, of course, but last thing they needed right now was the FBI finding the notebook and thinking they had a serial killer's souvenir.

Methos raised his bottle as Joe shut the book. "To Simon Haversham and his resting place in history."

"I know that name." MacLeod didn't look a lot better after a shower and a change of clothes, but at least he looked a little more alert.

Joe handed him a bottle of beer and felt his smile fade. "A friend?"

"No. Just … I think Richie mentioned him once. Biker." MacLeod turned his attention to Methos. "British?"

The other man nodded and a sharp smile grew. "British. Or his accent mimicry was better than some people's."

MacLeod rolled his eyes and Joe grinned, he'd wondered when Methos would bring up last week's incident with the drug dealer.

"I'm just saying that the next time you feel the need to try for an American accent, 'Valley' may not be your best choice."

MacLeod shrugged and picked up his beer. "He bought it."

"He didn't buy it, you kicked him in the head while he was trying to work out what you were saying."

" _Anyway_. If it was Simon, he wasn't very old. About the same age as Richie would be."

A pause was saved from being weighted down to silence as Methos spoke in a faintly affronted tone. "Are you suggesting he was too small and I should have thrown him back? Because I don't think The Gathering operates a catch and release policy. Unless, did your friend mention if the Feds are from Fish and Game?"

MacLeod waited patiently until the minor diatribe was over and spoke mildly. "Finished?"

"Sorry, it's been a long decade." Methos closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"What I'm saying is that none of them have been that old. Some were better than others but they're not … " MacLeod shrugged "… experienced enough?"

Joe nodded. "Age and treachery?"

"Something like that. Doesn't make sense if the Gathering's heating up."

Joe lowered himself into his chair behind the bar. "So cannon fodder. Someone's trying to wear you down before they take you on?"

MacLeod nodded. "Maybe, it wouldn't be the first time. But why go after Methos too? It's not like they even know who he is."

Methos didn't bother to look up from the papers he'd resumed grading. "We cannae all be the famous Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod. Like, y'know?" With a flourish, he wrote an ornately flowing 'F'.

Joe winced at the mangling of the Highlands accent, wondering if it was possible to die from acute vowel poisoning. MacLeod recoiled. "Don't do that again. And you know what I mean."

"I imagine he – or she - doesn't want to risk getting Challenged back if they take your head. Which is a little presumptuous on their part. They could have just asked, I would have told them MacLeod's crusades are his own."

The impulse was in Joe to mention that the last decade had seen Methos in the same city as MacLeod more often than it hadn't, but he bit the words back. Instead, he tried to imagine the kind of Immortal who would use these tactics. Names and faces came to mind – Mac had been right, it wasn't a new trick.

He coughed before the bickering got out of control. "Could be someone like Kenny. Too weak to Challenge you directly so they found another way."

They considered in silence for a moment and then Methos spoke reflectively. "Or it could actually be Kenny."

MacLeod finally shook his head. "Nah, he doesn't have that much patience. Anyway, I told him I'd kill him if he came after me again; he'd have a better plan than this."

The two bottles of beer were empty now; Joe stood and brushed them into the recycling box with his hand where they shattered satisfyingly. He leaned on the counter, arms crossed and waited until MacLeod looked back before he spoke. "So what are you going to do? You can't take the Challenges anymore, not with the Feds in town. Maybe it's time to … take a trip."

The man laughed quietly. "You mean run away."

"Strategic withdrawal. Lay low for a while." And hey, while he was dreaming he might as well go for broke. "Or find some Holy Ground. The Buddhist monastery, they take people in. Just for a couple of weeks, Mac. The Feds come, they look around, they go and it's back to business. And I'll try and find out who's in town. The network ain't what it used to be but I still got some numbers I can call."

A faint smile remained precisely in place. "I'll think about it, Joe."

Joe lifted his hands an inch and dropped them heavily back to the bar, sighed and had no inclination to hide it. He'd tried. "Sure."

"He's been in there a while."

David turned slightly away from his partner. It wasn't like he didn't like the guy, he did. He'd even come to terms with being lied to since word one. Definitely. More or less. Didn't matter, even before the thing with the Chinese it was fact: any watch went longer than an hour and Colby got hard on the nerves.

Privately he wondered if Don had partnered them just to see who snapped first.

"I mean, how long does it take to have a beer? Maybe he went out the back."

There was silence for just long enough that his hopes were raised and then, "What're you reading, anyway?"

Dashed but good, David lowered his magazine and turned back around. "Let me guess. You're bored?"

Colby grinned unrepentantly. "Hey, you know how much I love sitting on my ass for hours playing spot the bad guy."

"I'll find some windows for you to jump out later, okay?"

"I don't love jumping out windows either."

"Off roofs? Or they have that bridge."

Colby nodded to the magazine. "Like you're not bored."

David moved it out of reach; it wasn't that likely his reading material would be a casualty to keeping Colby amused but he didn't want to risk it. "I wasn't, I was reading. Now I'm bored. Don't know why, it's not like we have this conversation every time."

Colby was unmoved; it looked like his personal choice of entertainment had turned out to be David. "You've been on the same page for twenty minutes."

He moved the magazine further away. "It's a good article. I'm reflecting on it."

"It's in something called _Beatlology_."

He scowled. "Your point?"

Colby's grin widened. " _Beatlology_. How is that even a word?"

"Okay, first, you play _golf_. That's like an automatic loss of mocking rights, right there. And second, the Beatles are-" He stopped as he saw Colby's disturbingly eager expression and knew he'd just walked right into a three-hour argument over the band, their music and whatever weird-ass tangents the other man took. No way, no how. "You know what? It's way past lunchtime. Go forage, or whatever it is you Army guys do."

"I can do that." The door opened so fast David wondered if he'd been played. There was blessed peace for all of two seconds before he realised where his partner was headed.

He watched as the man jogged across the road, opened the door of the bar and then walked through the shadowed entrance. "Granger, I am going _throw_ you out a window."

Three heads swung his way as Colby opened the door and he stopped at the threshold. "Open, right? The sign..."

The man behind the bar was indistinct; as his eyes adjusted from the bright glare of sunlight outside to the cool dimness inside, Colby got an impression of blonde or silver hair and a beard. The man nodded apprehensively; Colby began to wonder if they should have run background check on the bar.

Whatever had caused the unease, the man snapped out of it fast. "Sure, just don't get many customers this early in the day, you know? What'll you have?"

He walked across the floor as the last of the blurring in his vision swam into focus; the dark shape at the end of the bar resolved itself into their guy. He'd cleaned up since earlier and that suggested he used this place as more than a watering hole.

Colby let his gaze finish its travel around the room, ending up back at the bar. "You got anything imported?"

The bar man's ready enough smile widened briefly to a grin and he turned towards the refrigerated racks of bottles behind him. Colby didn't miss the notebook that was palmed and dropped down behind the bar, or the way the other two men stared at their own beers as if expecting them to do something more entertaining than carbonate.

 _Interesting_.

A bottle of something Mexican slid to a stop next to his hand; Colby pushed a note back and then leant against the bar rail. "Thanks. So, you Joe?"

Joe nodded. "I am. Come back this evening and you'll see why it's called a blues bar."

He took a pull on the beer that looked deeper than it was. "I might do that."

"Been in town long?"

"That obvious I'm not a local, huh? Couple days."

The other man at the bar, the one with the nose, was looking at him with a trace of amusement that Colby couldn't quite find the reason for – unless out-of-towners were really funny.

He ignored it for a few seconds and then turned his head with an amicable smile. He hoped. "Can I help you?"

"Sorry, you look like someone I know." The man's eyes narrowed thoughtfully and long, pale fingers drummed absently on the bar top. "Ever been to Washington?"

Colby shook his head. "Not more than once."

"Probably wise. Adam Pierson." The man held his hand out and Colby shook it automatically; thrown off-balance by the gesture, "Colby Granger" was half out before he'd thought about it, by the last syllable he was trying not to wince. So that had been a little stupid. And, he had the feeling it was exactly what the man had wanted.

Well, hell.

He shifted mental gears away from lost tourist and knew something must have shown in his expression, however briefly, when it drew another smile from Pierson. "You're a teacher?" He nodded down at the pile of red-inked papers in front of the man.

"At the university; I find a drink before work steadies my nerves."

Colby could see that. When he and David had still been optimistic enough to think they might get the chance to learn the city a little, they'd taken a look at Seacouver U. It has been like the place was staging its own Grunge revival; some of the faculty had looked scarier than the students. This man was neatly turned out and wore the air of an absent-minded professor like he was born to it.

The scribbled words on the papers weren't math but that was about all he could tell. "What subject?"

"It has a long and profoundly boring title, so let's call it Ancient History."

"And Ancient history's that nerve-wracking?"

"You'd be amazed." Pierson's eyes widened earnestly for a moment. "And what brings you to our fair city, Ag- I'm sorry, _Mr_ Granger?"

Colby briefly considered denial but nothing in Pierson's expression said he'd be believed and, anyway, he'd be expecting it. The alternative wasn't much better, but maybe if he shook the branches something would take a fall out the tree. The bar man was busying himself behind the counter and the man Colby had been making the effort to pay no attention to at all was trying just as hard to return the favour.

He smiled. "The Bureau asked nicely."

In the pause he watched as they carefully didn't look at each other and that told him more than enough. No one who was innocent would react that little.

"Thanks for the beer." He half raised it and then let it settle untouched back on the bar. He headed back out the door, wondering exactly how much David was going to try and kill him.

He slid back into the car five minutes later with a bag of hamburgers and fries and handed it over with a bright smile on the off chance a peace offering would be accepted.

David took the bag and carefully balanced it on the dash. "I updated Don."

"Oh." His smile dropped. "How far out are they?"

"Why, you want a head start?" David half raised his hand to cut off Colby's reply, breathed out slow and even and then spoke again. "Okay, tell me you got something good."

"Three men: our guy's still in there, there's the bar owner and one Adam Pierson, College professor. He knew we were out here."

"He told you that?"

"As good as." Colby decided another grin would probably get him decked, so he tried for offhand. "So I told them I was FBI, figured it might shake them up a little."

David stared at him. "Undercover just isn't your thing, is it? Seriously, how did you even manage with the Chinese?"

"They _knew_. Pierson must have seen us when he went in. At least now we know they know that we … know. Okay, whatever. We know there's something going on with them and the owner of the place tried to hide some notebook when I went in. And our guy changed his clothes, so it's not just some random place he went for a beer – it's home."

Despite himself, David found Colby's argument persuasive and that was a pretty bad sign: when they were so hard up for information on a case that a screw up like this had an upside, it was time to re-evaluate.

"Don's going to tear you a new one." He reached for the bag, dug inside and found the burgers amongst the paper napkins. They were lukewarm and greasy; he threw one over to Colby. "Enjoy your last meal."

Colby unwrapped it and took a large bite, words muffled when he replied. "It was a good plan."

"Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, man." David stuffed his burger back in the bag and reached for the radio. Seacouver PD hadn't been able to ID the suspect, but even they had to be able to find something on a guy who came pre-IDed by his own bar.

Joe watched the Fed leave, then grabbed his cane and made his way out from behind the bar to set the sign from 'open' to 'closed'. After another second's thought, he pulled the blind down and then locked and bolted the door. That was probably about all he could without a roll of barbed wire, so he turned to look at Methos. "You recognised him?"

"He and another gentleman were sitting in a car across the street when I got here. I didn't think anything of it but it seemed a little odd he'd decide to come in after sitting out there for hours."

"You noticed two random people in a car in lunch time traffic?"

Methos smiled slightly. "Being hunted on a nightly basis does wonders for your observational skills, I can't recommend it enough."

Joe scowled as he walked back to the bar, and he stabbed his cane at the floor with every step to punctuate his mood. "How the hell are we already being watched?"

The smile twisted sardonically as Methos shot a look over to the still silent MacLeod. "I'm guessing _we_ aren't. Or _we_ weren't. _We_ probably are now."

MacLeod groaned and finally spoke, returning from the reverie he'd descended into. "They're good, I didn't see them."

Joe pulled the Fed's untouched beer towards him and took a long drink before replying. "You think they picked you up after last night?"

"There were cops on the scene before the Quickening was even done and it's a little hard to make a clean getaway when you're lit up like beacon."

"So why haven't they picked you up already?"

"Not enough evidence, maybe. Just a guy running from the scene."

"It's easily enough solved." Methos shrugged. "Stay here, let them see you're staying here, and I'll go and find someone eager to lose a foot off the top. Hard to pin it on you if you're miles from the storm."

MacLeod shook his head. "You said it yourself, you might be under surveillance now too."

"Then we need some outside help. Perhaps Amand-"

MacLeod shook his head again, harder. "I'm not bringing anyone else into this."

"Very noble. I'll be sure to send you a sword baked into a cake."

Joe ran a hand over his eyes and then looked back. "Or, we can give them a serial killer. Get them following one of you, let them see you killing the next Immortal. Die in a hail of bullets and …" Joe trailed away. Methos was right; it had been a long decade. "Never mind."

MacLeod canted his head and his expression became thoughtful as he studied Methos. "We could fight."

The other man looked wary. "What?"

"Let them see us fighting, I'll kill you and they kill me. Case closed."

"They might notice when our bodies disappear. And how, exactly, were you planning to account for the lightning part of 'The Lightning Killer'? They'll notice when there isn't any and I don't think they make Tesla coils that big."

MacLeod grimaced and conceded the point with a nod. "This was a lot easier last time."

"Well perhaps your next fascinating career move should be into law enforcement."

"There _has_ to be at least one of us already there, or a Watcher."

"Right, because the Watchers have so much power now." Joe wasn't pleased, not exactly, but he couldn't quite quell a rush of pride. The Immortals had never known how much of their activity the Watchers had cleaned up after, now they were finding out.

"You realise if we both run to a monastery now, it's going to look rather odd to our governmental friends." Methos stood and leaned over the bar, hunting for a beer within reach. Joe rolled his eyes and passed two up from the stash at his feet.

MacLeod spoke slowly, the words distasteful to him. "We could leave town, disappear for a few years."

Joe wondered if he should put the event in his notebook for posterity as Methos paused mid-bottle opening, struck silent. Methos finally managed, "That sounds like one of my plans, have I been an uncharacteristically good influence?"

With an uncomfortable roll of his shoulders, MacLeod took the offered beer. "I didn't say I liked it. But I don't like being investigated either and I like killing children who don't know better even less."

"Oh please, they're hardly children. And they're trying to kill you. More importantly, they're trying to kill _me_. Save your sympathy for someone who deserves it."

MacLeod reached over and gave him a few heavy-handed pats on the shoulder. "There, there."

Methos righted himself on his barstool. "Thank you, I feel much better."

"I'm glad. We're going out tonight."

"I should warn you, I don't put out on the first date."

MacLeod looked the other Immortal up and down with measured disbelief. "Yeah, right."

"Not for you, I wouldn't. You'd never respect me in the morning." Methos held up his hands to forestall the inevitable rejoinder, "Yes, yes, I know. You don't respect me now. Fine, what's the plan."

"Capture. I'm tired of being hunted. I want to ask one of these _children_ some questions and I need you to lead the Feds away if they get too close. If they arrest you, Joe can post bail."

Methos just about managed not to choke on his beer. "That's a terrible plan. Why can't I capture and you lead the Feds away – they're after you, not me."

"So is the Immortal. I think the Feds will take what they can get, the Immortal probably won't."

Methos looked askance to Joe. "I think I've just been insulted."

Joe nodded and managed a smile. "So that's a no to the running and hiding?"

MacLeod nodded. "That's a no."


	3. Chapter 3

Megan quietly read the latest incident report that David had emailed her, working her way slowly line by line. Next to her, Don was radiating anger without word or expression, a neat trick. So, she waited. It was a good tactic with Don, she'd learned that early. Charlie was silent too, she glanced at the rear view to see him still reading over the details of the killings.

After a few more miles of highway and open country passing by, Don finally spoke. "I told them to watch and wait. That was pretty clear. Not a lot of ambiguity there."

The even tone that didn't fool her and from the way Charlie's gaze darted up and then down again, Megan suspected she wasn't alone.

"They know they're trying to beat the clock to the next death. That changes things. You know what it's like; you've been there. What did you do?"

Don's mouth tightened. "I _waited_ and I _watched_." She waited and wasn't disappointed as he huffed and continued, grudgingly. "And sometimes I walked into a bar. But, hey, I didn't hold up big warning signs while I did it."

"He didn't go in there looking to get made. And it does tell us there are at least three people who are involved in some way. That's more than we had."

"That was pure luck."

Megan nodded, trying to strike a balance between negotiator and devil's advocate. Granger was going to owe her lunch until they both got their twenty. "Yes, it was. Bad and then good."

"He knows - they know - we're watching now."

"That could work for us. Anyway, they know David and Colby are there, they don't know anything else. Besides, the news stations are tuned to Lightning Killer twenty-four seven, they had to know a net was going around them. Colby was impulsive and he over-stepped, but maybe he did more good than harm."

"I would go with good." Charlie's tone was distracted, still half caught by the equations twisting in his mind.

Don waited for a few seconds and then prompted his brother to rejoin the real world. "How you figure that?"

"Well, I'd been working the data based on one suspect. Multiple suspects give an entirely new formula. Most serial killer cases could be considered on a zero sum model but if there's several people involved that expands the criteria significantly. I mean, that's a totally different payoff matrix."

Megan ran the sentence against the translation dictionary she'd been mentally building in the last few years and the nodded. "You mean that if there are several killers or one killer and accomplices, it may not be a serial case as we define it?"

Don resisted the urge to rub his eyes; he didn't need math to tell him that was a bad idea when he was pushing eighty down a busy highway. He cut in before Charlie started talking 'n' and pi. "Does all that mean you can calculate where there's going to be another killing? When?"

"I can expand the equations to account for more factors but … I don't know, Don. I don't think I can tell you any more than you already know about where they're likely to kill next." Charlie shuffled the papers in his hands. "But I can tell you there're more anomalies. Most of these deaths – from the nineties until now – have taken place between the hours of ten at night and five in the morning. They're also almost all in unpopulated or sparsely populated areas."

"Yeah, we read the report."

"Okay, so there have been three this time that don't fit that model. Two were during the day, but still in a remote area. One was at night but was the one that Colby and David were called to, in a back alley. Which suggests the killer got caught unaware."

Megan nodded. "Crime of opportunity, maybe."

"But that doesn't make sense with the rest of the deaths – they're all in specific types of places and within a certain time period. Why change? But the greater number of people involved, the probability of variation increases exponentially. It makes sense." Charlie smiled wryly. "Mathematically, anyway."

"The victim could have seen something - confronted the killer."

Don glanced at Megan and let his doubt show. "A middle-aged woman as what? A have-a-go hero?"

Megan shrugged and let it go, that was a conversation for the break room in a few weeks, when Don was feeling secure in his chauvinism. For the moment, she kept her focus on the case. "So far the only link between the victims is their anonymity; we only got an ID on two out of the sixteen we know about."

"And that's weird, right?"

Don nodded. "The Bureau takes pride in finding anyone, anywhere."

Charlie grinned. "I thought that was the NSA?"

"Yeah, well. We try harder." Don took a quick look at his cell, seeing no messages missed. "And we're better than the Seacouver PD. I told David to contact me when they'd got something on the guy who owns the bar. He should have been back by now."

Megan had been staring at the cell Don was glaring at; she narrowed her eyes and looked back down at the incident report David had emailed. "None of the victims had any ID on them at all. No cards, no cell phone, nothing. The two we did get, we got through the cars left at the scene – both rentals."

Charlie canted his head. "You think the killer took their IDs as a souvenir?"

"We did, but this latest one David and Colby were on the scene almost immediately; there wasn't time for the killer to search his victim and take what he wanted. The prelim says no wallet on the victim, no cell, nothing."

Don smirked without amusement. "Could have been 'lost' in processing."

Megan shook her head. "The PD might not be cooperating as much as we'd like, but there's a long way between territorial and corrupt."

"Yeah, but how likely is it that all the victims wouldn't even have a wallet?"

Charlie set his files on the seat beside him and leaned forward again. "Not very, absolutely not impossible though."

"And the alternative is all the victims ditched their wallets and went out to get killed. That does sound pretty impossible." Don paused and then turned his head briefly to smile at Megan, softening his mockery with a half smile. "You have a new theory, right?"

Megan returned the smile and shook her head. "Only more questions. With the rentals, we thought the killer forced the victim to drive them both to the scene. But forensics haven't turned up anything from the cars – no signs of struggle, no trace of a second person. At the scenes themselves, though, there've been obvious signs of a fight."

"Like victims drove out there themselves? No one in this city is willingly going meet a stranger someplace deserted right now."

"If the victims are an active element that would ... well. I need a new expression." Charlie began hunting for his pen and a reasonably clear sheet of paper; when it looked like he was in danger of writing on his own hand, Megan tore a page from her notepad and passed it back over her seat.

As muttered words and snatches of phrases began, Megan found she was familiar with more of them than she'd realised. When there seemed to be a pause in the muttering, she spoke. "Game Theory?"

"Right. With zero-sum – the killer's gain is directly proportional to the victim's loss. But the model has to be extended to account for different motives and optimal values and cooperation and-" He stopped, Megan wondered if her own expression was as nonplussed as Don's.

"Okay. Imagine a game of poker, one hand, no draw: five players each put a hundred dollars in the pot. Player One's hand wins and he gets five hundred dollars but the amount that came in the door and the amount that leaves is the same."

Megan nodded. "I get it, but I don't see how it relates to this."

Charlie grinned. "Stay with me. Imagine they choose to play a few hands, draws allowed. Strategy comes into it. There's mixed and pure strategy, mixed is where you choose randomly between possible options. Whatever seems like a good idea at the time." He laughed under his breath. "You could call Colby a mixed strategy kind of guy."

Don gave a grudging smile. "That's not all I'm going to call him."

"Then there's pure strategy, that's making the best decision every time."

"And that's not possible, right?"

"Not in anything more complex than Tic-Tac-Toe, really. So the point is, you can't always determine what the best strategy is, and that's where the pure strategy Nash equilibrium comes in. Each player makes the best decision based on the decisions of other players in the game."

Megan glanced at Don to see if the light of understanding was dawning; it didn't seem to be for him any more than it was for her.

After years of teaching, Charlie knew when he was losing his audience. "Bear with me. Player One and Player Two start to cooperate and agree to split the winnings; Player Four adds his watch to the pot. Maybe Player Three decides he really wants that watch and begins to mark the cards. Player Five doesn't notice anything and keeps playing as normal. The equilibrium breaks down.

"Originally, I had the killer ... I guess playing against the House. This expression removes the House and instead has multiple players each using roughly the same rules but it allows for card sharks."

"So you're saying that there are multiple serial killers and some of them have decided to, what? Cooperate?" Don sounded doubtful and Charlie couldn't blame him.

"No, I guess not. But it accounts for the victim's active state. I just need to ... refine"

Megan paged down the forensics report. "There is something that supports a multiple killer theory, though. In the most recent spate of killings they've found evidence of at least three distinct blades, two lighter and sharper, one heavier and blunter. At best guess, they're thinking katanas and some kind of … broad sword."

"That seems a little archaic … and serial killers don't usually deviate from their preferred tools, right? The scope has to be …" The sound of Charlie hunting for something started up again, Megan wordlessly tore another page out and handed it back to him.

Don coughed quietly. "Guys, if we drive through, we can be in Seacouver by midnight."

Megan gave him a level look. "Only if you break a few speeding laws."

"We're in hot pursuit." Don's smile was disarming when he wanted it to be. She shook her head, and then gestured to the road. He grinned and floored the accelerator.

Methos wondered why they chose to hunt at night, if they could. Daylight would have stolen the vibrancy of the Quickening, darkness pinpointed the Challenges for anyone looking. When the world had the sense to fear what the dark bought, it had been much easier. For a start, no one came looking.

Now the false lights – streetlights, flashlights, police lights – made the old terrors disappear and turned advantage to disadvantage.

And still, they hunted at night.

MacLeod had been silent since they'd left the bar, except for a few terse words when they were losing interested parties. Methos had long since learned not to interrupt the man when he was brooding, but it hadn't made for a very interesting evening so far.

He almost missed it when MacLeod finally spoke and blinked out of his own reverie. "Sorry, what?"

"I said, 'how far away do you think they are?'"

"A block, maybe two." The signature of the Immortal who'd been following them for an hour was staying at a constant distance, a low-level irritation at the back of his mind he'd been mostly managing to ignore.

MacLeod stopped on the street corner. "They're not going to close in while we're both here."

"Probably not. Your plan does seem to have a few flaws." He held his hand out and felt the light touch of rain. As it became stronger he hunched his shoulders and tried to convince his collar to do the work of a hood.

MacLeod looked up at the dark sky and smiled with more than a trace of black humour. "At least it isn't raining."

There was a glimmering sense for a brief half second of another Immortal, appearing and disappearing. The first time it had happened, they'd looked at each other for confirmation. Now, MacLeod just laughed mockingly under his breath. "They have to be on the subway, you can't tell me that was a car."

Methos stuck with his theory for want of anything better to do. "It might have been, just on the very edge."

"No way."

"Low-flying plane."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"I am never ridiculous. Well. Once." Methos looked up into the rain and then back to MacLeod. "I'll wait here, try not to be long."

MacLeod nodded and kept walking, hoping the Immortal trailing them would approach soon.

It was just before midnight when Don finally pulled in to the lot of the Casabel motel with a too-fast right that provoked a cacophony of horns from the other cars on the road. That was nothing - Megan was still trying to forget the drive through Tacoma.

The motel's lights were just bright enough to make out two figures waiting under the awning of the manager's office. Even if they weren't expecting David and Colby to meet them, she was pretty sure she could have recognised Colby by the aura of flight or fight alone. There had been several hours for David to spend winding him up and she doubted he'd wasted any of them.

Once out of the Sedan, Don restrained himself to a glare at Colby and then reached back inside to retrieve his cell. "Hey guys, thanks for meeting us. Anything new?"

David glanced at Colby and then shook his head. "Nothing. We lost the suspects, the PD's still screwing with us and the lab's gone home for the night, like real people." He grinned and Don acknowledged the sentiment with a wry smile in return.

"Yeah, well, look at what they're missing, huh? I'll call home, see if anything's turned up from the archives."

When he'd turned his back, Colby looked askance at Megan. She smiled sharply and spoke quietly. "You owe me, Granger. Big time."

Relief overcame natural suspicion and Colby grinned. "Name it, it's yours."

David wandered away as Colby and Megan began negotiations, towards Charlie as the man half staggered from the back of the car and then started pacing to relieve cramped muscles. "Hey, wasn't expecting to see you here."

"Amita had a thing, this seemed interesting." Charlie looked bemused. "And Megan tells me a road trip is an important rite of passage I missed."

David laughed quietly. "Pity you couldn't have been seeing a few sights along the way. World's biggest ball of twine or something."

Charlie looked blank for a moment and then nodded; David suspected he was being humoured. "Maybe on the way back. I caught up on the case files, is there any new data?"

"Not since the last murder. You think you can give us an idea where to start looking? We figure deserted places, but anything that narrows that down, you know? The suspects were walking so probably within the city, unless they got transportation."

"Well, assuming they're the aggressors-"

"We've found that serial killers usually are." David's mouth curled at the corner.

Charlie gave him a flat look. " _Assuming_ that, and given they don't appear to revisit locations, I can't tell you where they are right now but I think I can narrow the field down to a few places that would be likely destinations."

"Okay, that would be a great start. We can get the local LEOs to stake out a few locations as well, we might get lucky." He clapped the other man on the shoulder. "Thanks, Charlie."

Don closed his phone with a snap and turned around. "Okay, our local guy is Agent Feldman. He's going to get the police on the same page; he says Powell's a good guy, doesn't have a clue why we've been stonewalled. What do we have?"

David shook his head. "MacLeod and Pierson left the bar at six and started walking. Colby followed on foot and I followed in the car. We lost them after three blocks."

Don blinked. "How?"

"They're good."

It was the first time Colby had spoken directly to him and Don tried not to glare again, this wasn't the time. Colby didn't make excuses and his assessments, when he wasn't displaying some seriously poor impulse control, were usually on the money. "You think they've had some kind of training?"

"Maybe. I know we didn't take our eye off the ball. They're just … they're _good_."

Megan turned from her open laptop she'd given a temporary home on the hood of the Sedan. "We have IDs, guys. I guess Feldman speaks Powell's language."

She scanned down the files as the others crowded in.

"The suspect you followed from the scene is Duncan MacLeod. He owns a gym; uniforms have had it under surveillance. He spends half the time here, the rest of the year he's in Paris. He's got a history in antiques and he's left a trail of police investigations in his wake. They never got him on anything, though."

Don frowned. "History of violence?"

"Big time. And he's got swords in that gym – public place, the cops checked it out. Thing is, though, his file is partial. I don't have the security clearance to get it all and, Don? My security clearance is higher than yours."

Don assimilated that and then nodded. "What about Pierson."

She paged to the next file, this one far shorter but at least complete. "Like he told Colby, he's a college professor in the undergraduate History department. And he's slumming, he's got more doctorates than half the rest of the faculty combined."

David leaned a little closer to take a look at the blurry photo attached. "Police record?"

"Doesn't have one, but he has 'helped the police with their enquiries' more than once."

Now Colby leaned in. "He have a sword collection too?"

Megan turned and made a shooing motion with her hand, trying not to laugh when they all took precisely one step back. "If he does it's not in the file, but we might have enough to get a warrant on his apartment. We have more than enough for MacLeod's."

"Okay, get that ball rolling. Who was the other guy?"

"Joseph Dawson. Owns a bar here and in Paris. Vet. Where MacLeod goes, he pretty much follows and looking at his passport records, he's been doing that for years."

"Do we like him for any of this?"

"He's a double amputee. He may be helping them but I don't see anything in an active capacity."

"Okay, Megan, go talk to him. He has to know we're coming", he shot a look at Colby, "and he's probably geared up for guys with hoses so…"

She nodded. "Softly, softly."

Charlie coughed quietly. "Maybe I could talk to Pierson. Or I could go visit the Math department. Larry has a friend there, I could drop by … see if they know anything."

Don was shaking his head before Charlie had finished. "Thanks, buddy but I think we got it covered."

"Okay. I have a few locations they may choose ranked by probability but, Don, the math is still … we're missing a variable."

"Well, maybe Mr Dawson can fill it in for us. David, Colby, take the location with the highest probability. Feldman can liaise us some cover for another four. I'm going to make some calls."

Megan turned to Colby. "Payment one, you can drive me to the bar."

"Payment _one_?"

David grinned on his way past. "Don't even start to argue, man."

"Not arguing, clarifying." Colby held his hands up and then gestured to the rental. "Your carriage."

-o-

Even after midnight the bar was jumping, but Joe had long since abandoned serving the drinks and left the staff to do their jobs. He listened with half an ear to the band – good set, the drummer was back on his game – and idly ran through the accounts of the month.

Mostly, he watched the door.

He recognised the Fed as soon as she walked in, all business and nowhere near dressed for a night of drinking and Blues. He waited for a few seconds while her eyes adjusted to the darkness and then stood enough that she could see him, leaning heavily on the table.

She nodded acknowledgement and began to thread her way though the crowd. Once she'd made it to the table, he smiled and gestured to the seat across from him. "If I offer you a drink, is it attempted bribery?"

"Not as long as I pay for it." She smiled, reserved but real and he had to admit he been expecting someone a little less personable.

He lifted a hand and beckoned Rick over, then looked askance at the woman who still hadn't introduced herself. Normally the badge would have been in his face before she sat down.

"Orange and soda water, thanks."

"Make that two."

Once Rick had gone the woman leaned forward slightly. "Megan Reeves. I'm with the FBI, but I think you already guessed that." She drew her badge out of her pocket and let him inspect it before slipping it away. "And I think you know why I'm here."

Joe smiled. This was going to be fun. "I'm guessing it's not for the atmosphere so why don't you tell me, Agent Reeves?"

"How well did you know Agent McCormick and Agent Monroe?" It was an educated guess but Joe blinked and Megan's smile sharpened.

"Not well. McCormick was here … what, ten, twelve years ago; asking questions same as you." Joe adopted an expression of helpful concern. "Is this going to be a regular thing? If it is, I should get to know you better so I have something interesting to tell the next guy."

"I'm pretty sure this will be the last time, Mr. Dawson." Megan leaned back as her drink was placed on the table by her hand and nodded her thanks to the slightly too wide-eyed man who brought it over. She wondered if Dawson had warned his staff.

"Call me Joe."

"You going to tell me what's going on, Joe?"

"Why don't you tell me your theory?"

Questions answering questions was an old tactic but it was effective; Megan was willing to let it go in trade for giving him a sense of high ground. "Did you know I talked to Agent Monroe? Maybe she called you, friends talk – we've found phone records show that pretty often."

Dawson's expression was unconcerned and she thought the shrug was a nice touch. "She called, your visit brought up some old history. That illegal?"

"No, of course not. I was just interested in that tattoo you share." She gestured towards his shirt-covered wrist.

"Tattoo?" Dawson's eyes didn't even flicker down and her assessment of him went up another notch.

Her profile was based on a file and two minutes of conversation, but she thought she was beginning to get an understanding.

Dawson was someone who carried authority well, but lightly. He probably liked to be seen as one of the guys, charming and straight-forward, easy-going, maybe even a rebel. And under that, she had a growing certainty he was one of the most intelligent suspects she'd interviewed.

It was something in his gaze that he couldn't quite hide that seemed to be weighing and measuring. Most people probably never saw past that façade but now it was time to puncture it.

She let her smile widen until she saw the faintest trace of unease in his expression. "You know what we do a lot in the FBI? Paperwork. We write everything down and we're _really_ big fans of identifying features."

"I got mine after the war. I guess she liked it, copied it." His smile faded but retained a wry edge she couldn't get a reading on.

For now, she ignored it. "Yeah, that doesn't work, Joe. Her tattoo was noted on her records when she joined the FBI in the seventies."

He shrugged again but his heart didn't seem quite in it. "Coincidence, what can I tell you?"

"You can tell me where MacLeod and Pierson have gone. Who they're planning to kill tonight."

The smile died entirely and his gaze became intent. "They're not going to kill anyone."

She kept her own faint smile in place. "Tonight?"

"They haven't killed anyone, period. They're investigating, the same as you."

"An antiques dealer and a history professor have decided to investigate a crime? Your friend MacLeod was seen running from the scene of the last murder."

"So? That doesn't prove anything. You have a lot of circumstantial evidence and you want me to give you something more. Lady, there isn't anything more. You're on the wrong track."

Megan sipped her drink. "What's the right track, Joe?"

Dawson folded his arms defensively; he didn't look like he was having fun.


	4. Chapter 4

Given nothing to do, Charlie mumbled something in the direction of his brother and took the keys to the Sedan.

He'd intended to go find a store that sold something healthier than a nuked burrito, he really had. But.

But, the equation – it wasn't even an equation – the _expression_ was wrong; he knew it was. Don hadn't wanted him to accompany Colby and David and he hadn't been able to make his brother understand that the safest place on Earth was probably that deserted apartment complex.

He turned the expression in his mind as he drove, picturing a map of the city and mentally scratching out the areas that wouldn't fit.

 _Let n equal_ …

He took a right at the junction and drove west. The numbers were a swath in front of his eyes; constantly changing variables that defied equilibrium.

There was a point of mutual cooperation, he was sure of it. To reach the deserted areas both parties had to be in agreement. Or perhaps each thought an advantage would be had, but that only worked if the payoff was calculable and he wasn't convinced it was.

Assume. _Assume_ that murder wasn't the objective.

He wasn't sure where the thought had come from but he turned the equation over and _let payoff matrix equal x_.

With the identified victims, there had been no evidence they'd communicated with their killer – no arrangements or diary dates. Assuming there wasn't some kind of Fight Club style network, it was likely started here on the streets; where there was cover and crowds but not too much of either.

In the outskirts, but close to the transportation networks. No CCTV coverage, no ATM cameras, no residents. The map in his mind slowly but surely disappeared as he discounted first the larger areas and then the smaller zones.

He was a block away when he saw the lightning arcing across the sky.

-o-

"That was _not_ capturing, MacLeod. Remind me never to -" Methos' complaint broke off as he stumbled over the curb and then swore with feeling.

MacLeod reached out to steady him as they ran on. "He didn't give me a choice."

And he really hadn't; the Quickening had healed the gaping hole the other Immortal's sword had left, but it ached with a kind of phantom pain anyway.

It was a small price to pay for luck; if the stab at his heart had been better aimed his worries would be have been permanently over. As it was he'd been a heartbeat away from dead as he'd taken the man's head. He'd revived to find Methos dragging him down the alley as the last of the Quickening grounded itself around them both.

After a few more blocks, they stopped by the mouth of an alley. Methos bent, hands on his knees. MacLeod spoke quickly to try and head off the recriminations he knew were coming as soon as the other man caught his breath. "Did you get the sword?"

"What kind of a stupid question is that?"

" _Methos_."

Methos threw his hands up and then leaned against the brick wall, still breathing heavily. "No I didn't get his bloody sword. There was already a car pulling up, what did you expect me to do? Ask the nice policeman to wait while I removed the more damning evidence from the scene?"

MacLeod half turned to look back down the road "We have to go back."

For a man apparently on the verge of collapse, Methos moved fast to grab his arm. "We can't go back. Which part of the authorities wanting to introduce us to their draconian justice system isn't clear?"

" _Dammit_." He shook the hand off, but stayed where he was.

"Was he older, better than the others? That would break the pattern."

"No, he blind-sided me while we were talking." Pride might have stung him for that, but he couldn't find enough energy to care.

He had a theory that Methos would probably have to be dead not to have the energy to make a sharp comment though, so he was surprised when the man just nodded. "Did he tell you anything useful?"

"Apparently it's a Holy War." He didn't have to try for a sardonic tone, it was right there waiting.

Methos rolled his eyes. "Oh good, we need another one of those. Is the Messiah anyone we know?"

"He said Tear." Methos began walking and MacLeod fell into step besides him. "Maybe Tyr. Have you heard of an Immortal calling themselves that?"

Methos' smile was brief and humourless; he shrugged carelessly. "Several. Tyr's the god of glorious single combat, so that tends to appeal to the more ambitiously insane of us. And there's always someone willing to try godhood on for size; it doesn't usually take, though. The ones I know about all had their heads taken within a decade. I suppose they were asking for it, really. Did he tell you where Tyr is? Or why they're after you?"

MacLeod gave his own thin smile. "No, the conversation broke down about there. But he threw this at me before he made his play."

"You fell for that?" He took the coin, no, token from MacLeod's palm.

MacLeod absently rubbed the ache over his ribs again. "Long decade, remember?"

"Subway token, we were right." Methos studied the old token for a moment, then handed it back. "This line's been closed for years. You think that's where they're hiding?"

MacLeod nodded. "Or where they want me to go."

"Hm." Methos canted his head and stared into the middle distance. It wasn't the complete withdrawal of memory; MacLeod suspected the history the other Immortal was visiting wasn't his own. He walked quietly while Methos thought, monitoring their surroundings.

If the FBI were closing in on them, they were disguised as streetwalkers or drug dealers.

Finally, Methos glanced back. "Kanwulf?"

MacLeod shook his head. "That was years ago."

"He may have had friends, and you know as well as anyone exactly how cold we can serve our revenge."

"Kanwulf didn't have friends, he had victims."

"Then your guess is as good as mine."

They kept walking in silence, MacLeod's hand closed tighter around the token.

-o-

Charlie watched the very last of the electrical disturbance die away. He didn't shout after the running men, there was nothing he could do if they turned around except die. Probably in a really old fashioned way.

He felt his muscles slowly relax, one by one, but he couldn't seem to move his gaze from the street the men had disappeared up. One of them had looked at him, seen him clearly.

He'd been dragging the other man and then something had happened and then both men were running and Megan would want to know they hadn't had time to take the sword or IDs and-

The man had looked right at him.

Their eyes had met, the light had been good enough for identification purposes; Charlie was sure he could accurately describe the physical features and that was important and Don would be really happy about that and-

 _Right at him_.

He drew a shuddering breath and realised why his vision was beginning to swim as his lungs started to function again.

Okay. Okay, this was okay. He muttered to himself, calming words that anyone listening would probably call freaked out babbling but that was okay too. Despite himself he blinked and, when the men didn't immediately return while he wasn't looking, tore his gaze from the street to the alley.

There was a sword half hidden under a pile of trash bags, blade glaring under the reflected light of the street light, and he could see the legs and torso of a man slumped against the wall.

He flexed strangely numb fingers – had to be the electricity, had to be - and dialled his brother's cell phone.

It answered on the first ring. "Eppes."

"Donnie?"

"Can't ta-k now, Charlie there's -n another-"

He shuffled further away from the alley, remembering David's aborted attempt to report in. Hey, now _he_ was reporting in – that was pretty cool. Except, not really. At all.

He swallowed and spoke as clearly as he could. "I know. I'm right here."

" _What?_ "

Charlie winced and held the phone away from his ear until he judged it was safe to bring it closer again. "There were two men, they ran off. There's a body. And a sword. And some lightning. Well, not anymore. And I'm not sure it was lightning, actually. More like St Elmo's Fire, but the weather conditions aren't really right for that. Tell Megan they didn't have time to search for IDs."

Don was silent for long enough Charlie took another step back to distance himself from the static. At last there was a sharp breath and then, "Okay, get in the car and lock the doors. We're about two minutes out. You hear me, buddy? Get in the car." Now Don was making the effort to speak slowly and carefully; Charlie was proud of his brother for remembering the electrical interference would have happened again.

"They're not here anymore, Don." He was attempting to sound reasonable but he had to admit his voice sounded a little weird. Probably because he'd forgotten to breathe for a while.

Maybe he'd go sit in the car.

With the doors locked.

-o-

He stayed there even when the sirens intruded on the night and the police cars pulled up; he watched as the barrier tape was run from side to side and his brother stalked angrily around the scene.

Don had sent Megan to check he was okay and when she was satisfied there wasn't anything physically wrong with him he'd been left alone. He wasn't supposed to leave the crime scene, but there wasn't anything he could do to help while the forensic team were cataloguing.

So he just sat and watched; the CSI's methodical gridding of the scene reminded him of Amita's work on the Travelling Salesman. He flipped open his cell to call her, saw the time and closed it again. Still, they were pretty efficient.

In the end, it was Colby who handed him the coffee and crouched by the open door. "You doing okay?"

He turned his head slowly, trying to shake away the fog of algorithms he'd fallen into almost accidentally. "I'm fine. I guess I need to give a statement though, right?"

"Yeah, you will. Tomorrow."

"Was … did he have his head cut off?" Charlie looked past Colby; the corpse was well hidden by the policemen and paramedics who seemed to have magically appeared while Charlie wasn't paying attention.

Colby followed his gaze in a glance and then looked back with a small, wry smile. "Real smooth shave."

Charlie was used to the morbid humour of a crime scene and summoned a perfunctory smile in return. "I saw a sword."

"You interrupted them before they could get it, that's really good."

"Don's probably not going to see it that way."

Colby winced slightly. "Agent Eppes will, Don Eppes might take a little longer. He was pretty … concerned." Charlie was fairly sure the words 'freaked the hell out' had been forming before Colby corrected himself.

"At least I'll be able to help identify one of the bad guys, right?"

"Right." Colby nodded encouragingly. "How'd you know they were going to be here, anyway? I thought you said the locations out of the city were the best bet."

"They were, with the verified data. I just had a theory I was working on; I wasn't expecting to actually find them. Really."

Colby didn't exactly look believing but he didn't look accusing either. "Well, Megan's bringing Dawson in. We're going to get them, okay?"

He didn't know why Colby was being so solicitous; this was the kind of measured, reassuring tone he'd heard the man use on victims. He opened his mouth to tell him that and then decided maybe reassuring was okay.

"Yeah, I know." He managed a small but genuine smile. "Look, we know there's two of them now for sure. I'm going to go back to the motel and rework my equations."

"You want someone to drive you?"

Now he'd smiled, a grin was easier. "Shook up, Colby, not incapacitated."

Colby laughed and stood. "Okay, just take it easy. I'll let Don know you're headed over there. No detours this time, okay?"

"Hey, preaching to the choir." Charlie pulled the door closed and turned the engine, saw Don's head jerk towards him and pulled away before his brother could do more than half turn.

Don frowned and waited for Colby to walk closer, then nodded after the car. "Where's he going?"

"Back to the motel. You want me to put a uniform over there?"

"Yeah. I don't think they'd try for him but I'm not taking any chances." Don looked after the retreating Sedan for a moment and then ran a hand over his eyes and drew a breath. His expression sharpened as he focussed back on the job. "The sword's been sent to the lab, they've got it top of the pile and they said they'll turn it around in about five hours. So go get some sleep and be there to pick up the report when it's in."

Colby didn't argue.

Don turned back to his cell as a tinny voice spoke. "They got him in holding? I'll be there in twenty minutes."

-o-

Megan sat watching the monitor as the camera in Interview-3 tracked across the face of the man sat at the table. He wasn't in cuffs, she'd seen to that – it was still better to try honey, she was sure of it.

Don stood at the table looking down, but his tactics weren't working: Dawson didn't seem fazed by the height difference. After a few more seconds – before he would start to look stupid, rather than intimidating - Don took a seat.

"So you've had a couple hours to come up with a story, hit me."

Dawson tilted his head back a little and Megan could see the calculating intelligence that he'd been only partially successful masking at the bar; he wasn't even trying to hide it now. There was steel and smarts in this good ol' boy and she didn't envy Don trying to break him down.

"No story, just facts. I mean, that's what you guys always want, right? Just the facts."

Don shrugged, crossed his arms and waited.

Dawson looked down with a grimace that seemed as pained as it was wry. "Twelve years ago, there was a case a lot like this, right? Well we knew one of the women killed. Her name was Justine. She's in that file of yours. We helped McCormick with his investigation." He looked back up, meeting Don's gaze squarely. "And maybe MacLeod did a little more than help, but the job got done."

Don didn't nod or shake his head, he didn't look up or down; there was nothing in his expression at all. He'd even dropped the slightly aggressive posture as soon as he'd seen it wouldn't work. He gave Dawson nothing and Megan smiled slightly; it wasn't a tactic she'd been expecting from him, but it was a good one. "Large parts of MacLeod's file are locked up tight."

Dawson smirked. "And you know why, right? I mean, they don't do that for just anyone. C'mon, does the guy look like an antique's dealer to you? 'Course not.

"This time around, it starts happening again, he decided to look into it. Maybe he got a little enthusiastic, should have backed off once you guys came in, but he's not the killer."

"You can't prove any of this."

"Last I heard, the burden of proof didn't lie with the defence. They changed that lately?"

Don's expression stayed impassive. "You've known MacLeod a long time."

"Yeah, I have."

"So tell me, if he's so concerned with helping the police, why he keeps running away from crime scenes."

Joe shrugged. "Ask him yourself, he'll find you when he's done."

"Done killing people."

"Done saving them. You're going after the wrong guys."

"Guys." Don reached forward and flipped the top file open, showing Pierson's file. "Yeah, why don't you tell me about the professor who fights crime."

Megan winced and hoped Rosaria hadn't given Joe any more information on the Eppes. The hope died as Joe grinned.

"We talking about Pierson or your brother, Agent Eppes?"

"You don't want to start talking about my brother in any way, Dawson. Trust me."

Don didn't blink, didn't shift his expression in any way, but Megan could see Dawson's eyes narrow warily as he leaned away. He held his hands up from the table. "Not a threat, Eppes. Family is family. Just sometimes you'll be surprised who steps up."

They stared at each other and Megan couldn't read either man as they tested the air between them; she cursed the camera's angles. Something changed and Don half-smiled; the danger passed. "Right, because applied ancient history has so many applications in modern police work. How long you known him?"

"Not as long as MacLeod."

"That's not answering my question."

Joe was silent too long and Megan couldn't quite work out why. "I don't know. Ten, fifteen years."

"Uh huh."

They stared at each other for another long moment and then Don pushed the notebook he'd kept out of sight between the manila folders over the table. "Tell me about this."

Dawson's eyes followed its progress but he didn't reach over. "Bar tabs."

"It's ciphered. That seems a little excessive for bar tabs. And if you know about my brother, you know he can read it like it's easy."

"Tell him he can knock himself out." Joe shrugged again but its lines were tenser, Megan made a note on the sheet in front of her.

Don didn't pause. "Interesting tattoo."

"It's a tattoo, what can I tell you?"

"That a W? An M? I'd think it was something Masonic, but they're not so famous for the gender equality."

Joe relaxed, slowly and obviously – for show, Megan thought. And he could manage a really, truly obnoxious grin when he tried. "Your case is so weak you're down to the ink? I think we're getting to the part of the interview where I tell you to charge me or let me go."

Don shook his head slightly. "I don't have to do either, Dawson. Sit tight."

He stood and walked out of the room, a moment later the door to the observation booth opened. Megan glanced over and then back at the man sitting calmly now, staring meditatively at the table.

Don shut the door quietly behind him. "What do you think?"

"I think he knows a lot more than he's telling and -", she held up her hand as Don started to talk, "- _and_ I think you're not going to get it out of him. He knows interrogation techniques – he was controlling that interview at least half the time."

Don frowned. "Hey."

He didn't sound too aggrieved, he'd seen it too. Megan let out a breath. "He knows what he's doing. The only real slips were when he mentioned Charlie, when you bought up the notebook, and when you asked how long he'd known Pierson. I don't think he was threatening Charlie, I don't know what happened with Pierson though."

The frown cleared as Don nodded. "That was pretty weird. You think I should follow that line?"

"No, I don't think it goes anywhere, it just threw him for some reason. I want Pierson's medical records."

"Why?"

"Because I want to see if he's got an interesting tattoo. If he does, Monroe and I are going to have a little girl talk."

Don gave a more amused smile, lost some of the tightness around his eyes. "Okay. I'm going to put him back out there. Minimal risk and we know he's not the killer."

"Agreed."

"I'll get a uniform to process him out."

Megan stood and pressed a button on the control panel, darkening the monitor screens. "No, I'll do it."

"You think you can get something out of him?"

"Honestly, I don't think I can get anything he doesn't want to give. I'm hoping to make him want to."

Don nodded. "Okay." He glanced at the digital on the wall and shook his head. "Okay, and then get some sleep."

"I slept in the car, Don. You're the one who wouldn't let anyone else behind the wheel. Go back to the motel, there isn't going to be anything for a few hours. Talk to Charlie. See if he can look at the notebook."

"Yeah, okay." Don didn't move, gaze tracking back towards the Interview room.

"That would be now, Eppes." Megan smiled and gently pushed him towards the door.

Don let himself be herded out.

-o-

The light was still on in the motel, although dawn was already starting to lift colour from the darkness. The key scratched against the lock; he let himself into the room quietly to see Charlie asleep at the desk, head pillowed on his arms and surrounded by papers covered in equations. He picked one up from where it had fallen on the floor. It started out spaced with wide, complex brackets and symbols and gradually tightened to narrowed, cramped numbers fighting each other for space.

He debated leaving Charlie there but it couldn't be comfortable. He laid a hand on his shoulder. "Charlie, wake up."

"Mmf."

"C'mon, bud." He manhandled his brother to his feet and steered him to the single furthest from the door.

"Donnie?" Charlie's voice was sleep slurred. "What time'sit?"

"About five."

"Oh." Charlie was out again before his head hit the pillow. Don lay down on his own bed and stared up at the ceiling, closed his eyes and willed his mind to clear and let sleep come.

When he woke again, the sun was streaming through the curtains he'd forgotten to close. His cell was chirruping at him; he blinked to clear the fog away and coughed to clear his throat.

"Eppes."

"The lab results are in. You're not going to like it."

Colby sounded cautious, which had to mean whatever the bad news was, it was pretty bad. Don set his expectations at 'the lab blew up' and figured it had to get better from there. "Hit me."

"The blood doesn't belong to the victim, and the blade doesn't match against any used at the other murders."

"So, what? You're saying that wasn't MacLeod or Pierson's sword?"

"The only finger prints on it came from the victim."

"Okay, this is getting weirder." Don was unpleasantly reminded of Charlie's multiple serial killer theory. "Got any good news?"

"No more bodies have turned up."

Yeah, okay, that was pretty good news. "We still got eyes on Dawson?"

"He's at his bar. Uniforms are watching the place, he went in and he hasn't come out. No phone calls in or out either and the suspects haven't been seen in the vicinity. We think he must have warned them somehow, but I got no idea how he did it."

"Megan manage to pull Pierson's medical records?"

"Not yet. We don't have a warrant for his apartment either. We got one for MacLeod's though. The place is clean and none of the swords in the gym have any traces of blood. They're mostly ornamental. Don…"

He sighed. Bad news again. "What?"

"The PD is being cooperative as hell on everything but this guy. Dawson, Pierson, no problem. Bring up MacLeod and they get evasive. They've offered to show us the car pool twice."

"That's still a problem? Feldman said he'd dealt with it."

Colby's laugh was short and disbelieving. "When it comes to MacLeod, it's lip-service. I don't think they're seriously looking at him as a suspect. Half of dispatch seems to know the guy. I swear they're about two steps away from baking him cookies."

"Where're David and Megan?"

"Megan's gone back to the motel. After a _really_ expensive breakfast." Don had to grin at the aggrieved tone. "David's trying to get something, anything, out of the duty sergeant."

Don checked his watch and made a few mental calculations of his own, mostly involving a shower, coffee and rush hour traffic. "I'll be there in an hour and get this hashed out with Powell. See how he likes the idea of half the Bureau camping on his porch."

He hit call end without waiting for a reply and turned back from looking out the window to see Charlie watching him. "What's happened?"

"Nothing you gotta worry about." He tried a smile and found it easier with a few hours sleep between him and the urge to strangle his brother.

Charlie accepted that, for the moment, and came back with a tentative smile of his own. "You know I didn't deliberately go out there, right? I mean, that would be pretty stupid and we know I'm not stupid."

Don resisted the impulse to list all the stupid things Charlie had managed over the years – he'd been a good brother and kept a running count – and nodded instead. "Sure, I know. Just … don't do it again, okay? You get a theory, you tell me or David or Megan."

"Not Colby?"

"No, he'd go along with it. I have to go explain cooperation to the police department, you can-" He broke off and swung back towards the nightstand, remembering the copies of the notebook he'd had taken. He held the papers up as Charlie hauled himself into a sitting position. "Can you take a look at this? It's ciphered; probably nothing the lab couldn't break but-"

Charlie held his hand out for it automatically. "But I'm right here and it should keep me out for trouble for a couple of hours."

Don grinned and headed towards the bathroom.


	5. Chapter 5

"Officer Logan?" David smiled at the redhead behind the desk and leaned on the counter. She'd come in on the morning shift and there was a chance, a really, really small chance, that she didn't know she was meant to stonewall them.

She smiled back. "Anything I can do for you, Agent Sinclair?"

"I was wondering if you have any of the incident reports from the similar case in the nineties – before McCormick took over the investigation."

"Oh, sure." Her smile brightened with enthusiasm and she turned back to the computer. His hopes rose and then fell again a few key-stokes later as she shook her head slowly. "Those haven't been digitalised yet, they'll be down in records."

"That's in the basement, right?"

She nodded, eyes wide with sincere helpfulness. "Ask for Teddy. He knows those files like the back of his hand. He's been on sick leave, though, poor guy. Really bad. I mean, he's trying not to cough on anyone, but you might want to stay back. Especially with the rash, you know? You could put in a request instead but there's a big backlog down there, it might take a few days."

Somehow, she managed to find another watt to put in the smile and David backed away from it, resisting the impulse to shield his eyes. "Thanks, I'll do that."

He walked back over to Colby, who was leaning against the corridor entrance to the labs. "This time the archivist has, I don't know, smallpox or something."

Despite himself, Colby laughed. "They're getting pretty creative."

David shook his head. "Can we arrest a police station for obstruction?"

"We could try, but you might want to hold off on that."

"Why?"

Colby stopped staring at the entrance for long enough to glance over and grin. "Don will want to do it himself."

-o-

The plans of the subway system hadn't been hard to get; Marley Ramirez was – in Methos' words – a mediocre historian but a talented hacker, and one of the few students he'd taken the time to develop a rapport with.

MacLeod had understood why as soon as they'd walked in the complex and he'd caught the inconsistent hum of a pre-Immortal.

Ramirez was an affable young man, MacLeod hoped he lived long and died in his bed.

The plans had shown miles and miles of the line; areas that were now used by other lines, areas that were closed and under repair; all taking up far more ground than they had any chance of covering in less than a week and every passing hour brought the police closer.

They argued most likely locations until daybreak began to turn to sunrise, and they were forced to admit they were talking in circles.

Now they were walking again and as Methos seemed to have a destination in mind, MacLeod had let him lead the way. They made it to the same block as the bar before MacLeod caught the other man's arm.

Methos didn't make a scene as MacLeod veered them both into the relative cover of the nearest alley. He wrinkled his nose, though; the smell wasn't one he wanted to linger in the vicinity of for long. "What?"

"The lights are off. _All_ the lights."

"Ah." Methos sighed. "I suppose it to was too much to hope they'd leave him alone. All right, well, do we have a plan?"

MacLeod turned his attention from the mouth of the alley to the token in his hand. He looked up with a smile that was more fatalistic than Methos could honestly say he was comfortable with. "We have a plan."

"Am I going to like this plan?"

"There's little to no chance you'll lose your head."

Methos looked at him for a long moment and decided now was probably not the time to begin a searching inquiry into what – exactly - he could expect to lose. Instead, he nodded. "In principle, I like this plan."

"If they have Joe, they'll have his notebook, right?"

"I'd imagine so. Agent Granger certainly noticed Joe trying to hide it, so I imagine that would have interested him. It's ciphered and they have a mathematical genius standing around doing nothing, so…"

"Is he good enough to crack it?"

"Possibly, parts of it. But the codes Joe – the Watchers – use have been in development for … a very long time. Half of them involve dead languages that aren't even recorded anywhere, now. I suppose he may be able to get names, locations – they'll be easier."

"It just needs to be enough for him to figure out where to send his people. If he has a proper list of locations, he can make some educated guesses.

"You _want_ him to crack it?"

MacLeod nodded. "And if he doesn't, I want you to find him and help him. Give me a few hours and then get them on that line, one way or another."

"And suddenly I find myself liking the plan so much less. I'm too pretty to go to jail, MacLeod."

"Maybe it would do you good." MacLeod's sharp smile was blunted by tiredness but it was still there and that was strangely reassuring.

Methos made a mental note to have himself committed at the earliest opportunity and rolled his eyes. "Fine. Where are you going?"

MacLeod held the token up to the thin light beginning to wash into the alley. "It's amazing who you'll meet when you ride the subway for a while."

-o-

Don wandered around the office and tried to curb his anger as he waited for the Captain himself to show. The slight was deliberate, he was damned if he was going to give the expected reaction. He even managed a smile when Powell finally appeared.

"Agent Eppes." The man nodded and extended a hand. "Take a seat."

Powell was thick set and nearing retirement age; Don wondered if that had anything to do with the man's blasé attitude towards the investigation. But that didn't jive with the medals and placards around the office, citing him for bravery, for dedication.

It also didn't jive with the hard shrewdness in the man's eyes.

Don shook the offered hand, summoned another smile and then sat. Powell crossed around his desk and took his own seat.

He leaned forward, the picture of solicitous hospitality. "You want coffee? Anything?"

Don shook his head; he'd been warned about the coffee. "No, thanks. So, Feldman thinks we've had some communication problems. That what's happened, Captain?"

Powell leaned back and raised his hands slightly. "I guess that's got to be it, huh? What did you want from us, Eppes? We've watched the buildings you asked us to watch, we've run the IDs you wanted checked."

"MacLeod, you've met him more than once, right? Early nineties, during a hostage situation, again at a murder out in the sticks."

Powell shrugged. "Man gets around."

"And you never looked into him."

"Never gave us a reason to."

Don leant forward and dropped the smile. "He's giving you a reason now, Powell."

The man's eyes flared and then banked back to a polite ambivalence. "And we're on it; my people are doing their best. But a closed file's a closed file – that's more your area than mine."

"Last year, an unidentified man killed two little girls. You had his name in three hours and him in twenty-four." Don gestured back towards the plaque on the wall. "You went into the house yourself."

"I have some good people. Very good."

"You had every uniform you had on every street, in every building, at every way out until you got him. Hell of an operation."

Powell nodded. "Thanks."

"So what makes MacLeod different?"

Powell shook his head. "Not a thing. We're doing our best, that's not good enough you know where you can take it."

Where he could put it, was more likely. He nodded to Powell's arm. "You got any tattoos, Captain?"

Powell looked bemused but he didn't glance down. "What's that got to do with anything?"

Don shrugged. "Humour me."

"One, forces tattoo."

"Not on your wrist?"

The confusion remained and Don didn't think he was faking it. "Nope." Powell undid the buttons on his cuffs and rolled his sleeves back to show clear skin with that same mix of helpfulness and obfuscation they'd been hitting since they'd arrived.

Powell began to roll the sleeves down. "So you're trying to work out how much you can push this, right? You've played nice, time for the stick?"

Don opened his mouth and Powell held his hand up. "You might get further with the stick, but it won't be by a hell of a lot and you'll still be going nowhere fast.

"I'll tell you the God's honest truth. It's not MacLeod." Powell smiled thinly and not with approval. "Oh, he's involved himself - like I told you, the man gets around. But he's not your killer and while you're wasting your and our time running him down – which isn't going to happen, take it from me – more people are going to die. So, do you want to bring down the stick … or do you want me to tell you how we can really help?"

They sat in silence for a long moment; Powell gave him time to think past anger and ego, and that was more than Don had expected. Finally, he lifted his hand and let it fall. "What've you got?"

"Not what, who. This just came in, we sent a copy to your people too." Powell pushed over the file he'd been holding. "When we had a whole spare minute between stakeouts and searches, we looked into the victims. They all had traces of the same thing on their skin and in their hair, some had a little, some had a lot."

Don shook his head. "Just break it down."

"Subway fumes. That concentration, we're not talking taking a ride. They were someplace not well ventilated. Disused station, maybe."

Don nodded, annoyance forgotten in the face of a genuine lead. "That's still a lot to cover. If you pulled station surveillance tapes, I can get my people running face recognition. See if they've got a line in common."

Powell finally offered a smile that wasn't all teeth. "Now this is what I call cooperation."

-o-

When Charlie didn't answer his cell phone, Don had found all new traffic violations to make despite the uniform on the door's radioed-in assurance all was quiet. He'd jogged up the stairs and opened the door with his hand resting on his gun; found Charlie staring at the wall.

Charlie had now been staring at the wall for the full half hour since Don had returned and he was beginning to wonder if he should have pressed harder to find out if his brother was okay.

This probably wasn't okay.

On the other hand, sometimes it was hard to tell. He'd walked in on his brother standing frozen in front of his chalkboard before, hand half raised and just gone from the world. It had scared him the first couple of times, when he was a kid and Charlie, hell. Charlie was a baby. But he got it now. Had to, for every time he'd been yelled at because he just couldn't help checking, making sure Charlie came back.

Don shook off the unease and decided to leave him to it. He picked the holster up from where he'd dropped it on the nightstand and shrugged it on, then began to scribble out a note.

"Don?"

"Yeah?" He turned; Charlie blinked and finally turned around, eyes alert again. "Did you find them?"

"No, but Powell's people came up with the goods. We're looking at the subway. Colby and David are going through surveillance tapes; Megan's trying to talk LA into sending up a few specialists. I wanted to see if you'd found anything in the book, maybe help us narrow it down?"

"Not exactly. This is … it's incredible, actually. I'd love to talk to whoever came up with it, because it seems to be a segmented-"

Don coughed. "Subway."

"Right. No. And yes. There're more locations in here."

Don's head jerked up from the scrawled notes. "Wait, more bodies?"

Charlie opened his mouth but couldn't think what to say; he'd been so intent on the cipher he hadn't even considered that. Finally he nodded. "Maybe, I don't know. I just have all the locations bodies have been found at and a few more."

"Plans, maybe." Don looked hopeful and Charlie hated to shake his head.

"No, the dates were one of the first things I figured out and they're all previous. It's reading more like a log, or a diary. Or, I guess, an incident report." Charlie smiled briefly. "The point is, I have more in the city, they're not the anomaly we thought they were according to this – it's roughly half and half and all have been within the same five mile radius."

"What line is that?"

They pulled a map of the subway system over the locations plotted on Charlie's map. "It's not close to anything."

"Anything current." Don flipped his cell phone open. "We need an older map."

-o-

Methos watched as the elder Eppes brother left the motel room with significantly more enthusiasm than he'd entered it; the younger one wasn't far behind him. He waited until they'd gone and for the uniform who'd been watching the complex to climb into his own car, and then he waited a few minutes longer just to be sure.

At last, he jogged up the stairs while he pulled a length of wire from his sleeve and hoped lock picking was like falling off a bike.

It turned out that it was. Well, that or the locks of the motel were particularly pitiful. He took in the state of the room at a glance and then walked to the cluttered desk and its abundance of papers.

Hands gloved, he picked up a sheet and admired the poetry in the numbers, caught for a moment in their history. They said math was everything and he thought they might be right, but it wasn't something he could or would ever understand. The concept of that was beautiful to him in ways he had no interest in dissecting; the unknown was enough.

With some regret, he put the papers back down and found what he'd been looking for. The copies of Joe's notes were covered with notation and he was impressed with how much the mathematician had managed to glean from it.

The important part seemed to be that he'd gleaned enough, which he had to admit a selfish kind of happiness about. He hadn't been particularly looking forward to turning himself in to get the Feds on the right track - it seemed strangely undignified.

With one last look at the equations, he folded the notes and stuffed them into his pocket, and then he left.

-o-

MacLeod could feel the presence of another Immortal at some of the stations he passed, but he stayed where he was and stared into the darkness of the tunnels as the train thundered through.

It was hard to stay alert with the sway of the carriage and the beat of the wheels over the track lulling his mind into a dangerous neutral. His chest no longer hurt but the weeks of sleep deprivation were catching up fast. The other Immortal had wanted him off his game and he let his eyes close and his posture slouch, trying to look it. He just wished he had to act a little more than he was.

The line went east to west and ran closest to the abandoned one; it was probably even odds whether the Feds or the other Immortal found him first.

After two hours, the Immortal's presence went from a whisper to a roar and he opened his eyes as the train pulled into the station.

More left than entered and he could see her clearly as she picked her way down the carriage towards him. He couldn't guess the age she'd been when she died, early twenties maybe. She was petite, no more than five feet tall he was sure, but she moved gracefully. She'd be fast in a fight, probably deceptively strong, but not strong enough and she'd tire fast.

Kenny by any other name. He felt a pang of sympathy and buried it fast as an inner voice that sounded uncomfortably close to Methos' chided him not to be stupid.

What he could see of her face was drawn in attractive but solid, square lines that made him think of Saxon stock. Long dark hair fell absolutely straight over half of her face and had been styled into submission – it didn't move even when she took a seat beside him. "You look tired, MacLeod."

"I've been told." He kept his gaze straight ahead, able to see well enough in the window that darkness and light had turned into a mirror. "Do I know you?"

She shook her head and caught his eyes in the reflection. "There's no reason you should remember. But I know you, I know what you did." Her accent was anonymously mid-western but under it he could hear a harsher, northern England accent.

"What did you tell them to make them fight me?"

She smiled, the imperfect mirror distorting it into a grimace. "That your death would make them legend. It didn't take much, they were young; it was easy."

"Who are you? Why Tyr?"

The dark reflection stared at him for a long moment and then reached up to draw the veil of hair away. He didn't turn his head. He didn't have to; the thick scar that ran hairline to chin was starkly obvious. The wound had taken the eye and left the skin puckered and misshapen; the base of it was rounded while the top came to a point.

Tear. He'd been right the first time. "I didn't - I never killed women."

She let the hair fall back. "You didn't kill me, MacLeod. More's the pity. If you had, maybe this would have healed as I was reborn. You just stole every life around me instead."

He swallowed. "When?"

"Does it matter?"

If she was lying, it made no difference. If she was telling the truth, what could he possibly say? He shook his head. "No, it doesn't. So why now."

"Because the Gathering is coming, we can all feel it."

"You want my power."

She huffed softly. "Even with it, we both know I don't have a chance. No, I just wanted to make sure the sword that takes you down is mine. I wanted you heart-sick and weary, MacLeod. I wanted you to remember what it was like to kill innocents and then kill more."

"You bought the FBI to the city, are you insane?"

That gave her pause but her expression didn't give him any hope; there wasn't anger, only acceptance.

"They don't matter. When they find your body, they'll leave."

He nodded and twisted his mouth into his own grimace of a smile. "You set me up."

"Insurance. With your death, the secret is safe. With mine … they may never stop looking."

"Other Immortals have tried this and it didn't turn out so well for them."

"Did they find either outcome acceptable?" She turned her head to look at him. "I do."

-o-

He rode the line east to west and then back again after she left, holding the paper she'd pressed into his hand and desperately trying to find her face in his memory. He wanted to believe she was lying, that maybe this was her standard hunting tactic: make an Immortal think they'd maimed her, psych them out and use their weakness. Maybe if he believed it enough, he'd stop wondering if he could take her head.

The next Immortal presence to intrude on him was familiar in a hundred ways he couldn't begin to describe. Wouldn't want to begin to, given he'd never been able to recognise any other Immortal that way before. He stood and made his way out of the carriage with the other passengers.

Methos stood waiting beside a column that hid him from the view of the stairs and two cameras; MacLeod had a feeling that was nowhere near accidental and joined him as quickly as he could while the crowd still provided a little cover.

"They know where they're going, and I imagine they'll have it narrowed to a line by now."

"I have a location." MacLeod held the piece of paper up and Methos' eyes brightened with interest.

"You met our mysterious host, then? Was he very godlike?"

"She, and it was Tear, not Tyr. She has a large scar down her face, shaped like a teardrop."

The light faded. "Oh dear."

"You've heard of her?"

"Not … exactly."

"How? Exactly."

"Mary of York. She's in the Watcher records, nothing of note. English, roughly the same age as you. She doesn't engage in Challenges, much."

"Then why 'oh dear'?"

"Because it's a woman with a doubtless heart-breaking story, MacLeod, and you are a raving chauvinist."

"I am not."

Methos' finger rose to point at his target. "Yes, you are. You don't allow them to be as vicious, underhanded or unpleasant as we are and that is inequality, my friend."

"She's … very small. Not much bigger than a child. And she said I wronged her, Methos."

"Oh, that's different. You should probably throw yourself on your sword now, then."

"Be serious."

"Then be intelligent. She could be lying-"

MacLeod nodded. "I know."

Methos ignored him. "- and she could be an excellent swordswoman, child-like proportions notwithstanding. She doesn't have Kenny's problem – he was a child, his muscles never fully developed and all the practise in the world wouldn't help. She, on the other hand, is an adult. And if you think shorter adults – male or female - can't also be some of the finest soldiers on Earth, you're forgetting your history."

It really was uncanny how closely Methos' words resembled the ones his mental counterpart in MacLeod's head had been saying.

He waited until the man wound down and then nodded. "I said, I know."

"Then why are you brooding on it?"

"Because the day I don't brood on killing someone, anyone, is the day I've lost something I can't get back."

Methos' mouth hung open and then he nodded. "Fine."

"I need you to keep the FBI off my back until the Challenge is over. Then let them through, let them see."

"See what?"

"My body or hers; either one should end it. I'm willing to bet the prints of her disciples will be all over the place down there and Powell doesn't know what's going on but he knows how to make a good story."

"Where are we going?"

"The station they closed under East Way, but we have some things to pick up first."

"You have another plan, don't you?"

"You won't like this one either."

-o-

Methos waited in the old tunnel, with its soot-scarred walls and scurrying rats, on the very edge of awareness of an Immortal presence, and wondered who was winning. He'd felt the other Immortal arrive and made sure to stand precisely where he was, MacLeod would probably never forgive him if he'd driven them off.

And now he was in an ideal position to see the dancing flashlights of the police as they drew nearer, hear the crackling of their radios.

The question was what to do about it.

He supposed he could take a hostage, but that had the immediate problem of no suitable hostage being in the vicinity. He could try and hold them off in a dramatic shoot out. Except his gun held six bullets and he was fairly sure more than that was required for anything truly cinematic. Besides, he didn't want to risk actually hurting anyone.

In the end he stayed where he was as the lights danced their way over him and then came back, blinding in their intensity. He raised a hand to shield his eyes and could just about make out figures against the darkness. It was hard to see clearly but their set stances suggested guns were now pointing at him. Well, the stances and the demands he raise his hands.

He raised his hands. "This seems a little excessive for trespassing."

A figured came forward, walking crabwise to keep out of the line of fire. Eppes. "Where's MacLeod?"

"Sorry, who?" He saw the scowl on the lead agent's expression deepen. "Oh, that MacLeod." He glanced over his shoulder and shrugged. "I don't know, he mentioned something about finding a vicious killer."

"Sinclair, Granger, go."

The two men broke their cover and ran forward, he nodded as they passed and then allowed himself to be manhandled by Eppes to lean against the tunnel wall. He'd already hidden his sword but he felt a strange pang as his gun was taken away.

"You have a license for that?"

"Of course. Don't be disappointed, though, I could resist arrest if it would make you happier. And there's still that trespassing charge."

He'd expected the cuffs to be overly tight given the admittedly childish way he was winding the man up but they were almost clinically tightened – no more, no less than they should be.

Eppes hauled him around by the shoulder. "That's okay, I'm sure I can find all kinds of things to put at your door. Let's start with accessory to murder and go from there. Megan?"

"I got him."

The woman wasn't any rougher than she had to be as she walked him up towards the police officers at the tunnel's mouth, he made a mental note to send some kind of letter of commendation in. Although he could appreciate they might not find it as complimentary as intended.

He settled down to wait until the uncomfortable sense of being stared at turned his head. Another man was standing beside Megan now, the famous Charlie Eppes. He nodded and then looked away, just in time to see the tunnel light up.

-o-

And continue to light up. The Quickening – and it was Quickening, he could feel it thrumming along his nerves even here – was being considerably helped by the old line's back-up generators and cables left strategically near vents under some of the crime scenes.

It wasn't much, anyone with any concept of science would be sure to raise some pointed questions but it was something towards an explanation and, if he knew one thing, he knew that the first answer was the best loved answer of any bureaucracy – and that was the history of the world.

Besides, what else could they possibly blame the lightning on?

He turned his eyes from the spectacle to watch the woman and man. The first was staring, startled and then concerned. The second looked speculative, that troubled him more.

When the brown eyes turned that speculative look on him, Methos didn't blink. He couldn't afford to.

He looked back as the last of the flickering light show died away and stared unblinkingly at the tunnel mouth until he saw four figures making their way out.

Three agents and one MacLeod. He breathed out.

-o-

MacLeod sat quietly in the interview room and tried not to fidget. In his experience, it wasn't a good idea to give the impression you genuinely didn't care to the authorities. It was like a challenge and he'd had enough of those.

So he sat and he waited and he managed not to make a smart-ass comment when the FBI man who'd identified himself as Don Eppes finally arrived.

"Your prints are on both swords, but you say neither was yours? You want to give me your theory why she'd have two swords. I mean, the short sword I can see but the katana?"

MacLeod shrugged. "Finger prints happen when you're trying not to get your head cut off. I have no idea why she'd have two swords. Maybe she liked having a spare."

Don let himself drop into his seat. "What happened?"

"You have my statement."

"Tell me again."

"I got a tip she was out there, I went looking and hey, she was."

"You ran from at least two crime scenes."

MacLeod's tone stayed absolutely level. "I got scared."

Don stared at him and MacLeod stared back. In the observation room, Megan tried very hard not to laugh.

"You can laugh, we won't tell him."

She flashed a quick grin to Colby. "You would, and you'd hold it over my head and say you didn't owe me any more."

Colby glanced at David. "She's good."

David nodded, straight faced. "She is."

Don and MacLeod were still staring. Finally, Don spoke again. "Your blood matched the blood found on the sword in the alley."

"Do you see any gaping wounds? I have no idea how that got there. I told you, she was trying to set me up."

"Right. And, why was that again? You claim you've never met her before."

"I haven't."

"You also claim you cut her head off in self-defence."

"I did."

Don leaned forward. "Her head. Some people – people with your background – might have gone to disable."

MacLeod's expression softened under the barely contained belligerence. "She didn't give me any choice."

"And you exercised a little poetic justice."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You want to tell me why the Seacouver PD seems to have every record of you they have 'in transit'?"

MacLeod's expression remained impassive as he shrugged. "Couldn't say."

"Interesting notebook your friend Dawson was keeping for you."

"We were tracking her, so were most of the media in the city – you want to arrest them too?"

"There are locations and dates no bodies were found at."

"Then I guess we were wrong."

"How well did you know Agent McCormick?"

The hard expression on the man softened again. Not much, but enough Megan could see something below it this time. Tired and discontent and, she thought, sad. He was dangerous, she had no doubt he was dangerous, but nothing in her gut told her a killer was about to walk for lack of evidence.

It was a good feeling.

"McCormick? I didn't know him well. He seemed like a good man. Honorable."

Don's expression had cleared; Megan wondered if he'd seen what she had. Something in his posture had eased anyway.

He stood. "Wait in here, someone will be along to process you out."

MacLeod blinked. "That's it?"

"As Captain Powell keeps telling us, we have nothing to hold you on. You going to tell me something to make that different?"

"Nothing to tell."

"Then you're free to go."

MacLeod's mouth curved in a smile, it wasn't smug – Megan might have been forced to try and arrest him for something else if it had been. If anything, it was surprised.

-o-

Don looked strangely disappointed. "You're sure about this, Megan? We can take it slower going back; see some sights."

"I'm sure. I'm going to take a couple days, see the sights here and then I'll fly back on Wednesday. And I'm sure Colby will love playing cow bingo."

-o-

Charlie stood outside the bar, listening to the music spilling out onto the street. He wanted to go in but he wasn't sure it was wise. People reacted a little unpredictably when they'd been accused of murder.

"Professor Eppes." The voice was smooth, the accent English. He turned quickly and then made the effort to relax. "Professor Pierson."

"Adam, please."

"Call me Charlie."

Adam nodded towards the door. "You can go in, you know."

"No, I don't think so. I just… I'm a mathematician."

"I understand that's putting it mildly."

Charlie half-smiled. "Heh, maybe. The work I do for the FBI, it's math. It's finding the equation that explains it all."

"And your math hasn't explained this all?"

"All those people went willingly, people don't do that unless they see an advantage. They were fighting each other, weren't they? They were all killers."

Pierson took a step back, eyes shuttering. "I'm sorry, I can't help you."

"Yeah, that doesn't make much sense, does it?" Charlie tried to read the expression on the man's face but he couldn't, he wished Megan were there. "Maybe game theory wasn't the right approach."

Pierson smiled. "Maybe you didn't have the right game."


End file.
